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THE 


SECRET OF NARCISSE 


(gt (Romance 


EDMUND GOSSE 

1 I 

AUTHOR OF “GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY, 1 ’ “SEVENTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES,” 

“ ON VIOL AND FLUTE,” ETC. 


( OCT 24c 1892 

§ h iH"" ' 

NEW YORK y Q (gy, £ 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 

5 and 7 East Sixteenth Street 


Chicago: 266 & 268 Wabash Ave. 


Copyright, 1892, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 


[All rights reservedi\ 


/ 


THE SECRET OE NARCISSE. 


I. 

It was Monday before Pentecost in the year 
1548. There had been rain and wind, but 
the gusts had fallen, and it was a yellow 
soundless afternoon that was now drawing 
to a close. From the whitewashed steps at 
their doorway, women and children of four 
k generations could see, down the steep and 
tortuous street, the vineyard opposite the 
town, the long, smooth, round hill-side, as 
brown as a bear-skin in the warm flood of 
sunlight. All these Mercillats were talking 


6 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


at ODce — all, except the silent extremities of 
the family — the bald and toothless grand- 
mother, bowed upon her staff, and the baby, 
wrapped up and stiffly set, like an image* 
along the arm of its young mother, Lucie. 
One other member of the group said but little, 
Rosalie Mercillat, of whom her father, the 
gunsmith, was heard to swear, a little too 
frequently and too loudly, that she was the 
prettiest maid in Bar-le-Due, or, for that 
matter, in the whole Duchy of the Barrois. 
Handsome she was, with dark blue eyes 
beneath her masses of black hair ; large of 
limb, but tall and graceful, carrying an even 
flow of healthy blood under the creamy pal- 
lor of her complexion. For Rosalie the loud 
discussion of market prices, of the reproof 
given by the cure to the daughter of their 
neighbor, the flesher, of the propriety of 


THE SECRET OF E4RCJSSE, 7 , 

feeding the low fire of charcoal on the 
liearth, seemed to have less fascination than 
for the rest. Hence it was she who, gazing 
down the street, gave the expected signal. 

“She, is coining,” said Rosalie, and the 
family rose languidly to their feet, while a 
few knots of persons gathered, in a similar 
position, at one or two other doorways. Be- 
low them in the narrow street, a singular 
procession made its appearance. At the 
head of it, a tall figure, entirely shrouded by 
black flowing garments, embroidered in 
white with death’s-heads and pierced hearts, 
advanced laboriously, its train supported by 
two indifferent pages, the one of whom 
yawned so often that he set the other’s jaws 
agape in sympathy. The Ducal chamber- 
lain, stiff with sumptuous mourning, strode 
beside^ and a little careless bevy of. servants 


8 


THE SECRET OF NAR CISSE. 


attended. Slowly, slowly the procession 
climbed the Rue Chavee, ascended the Place, 
and disappeared within the great portals of 
the church. As it did so, the chatter about 
the price of pigs’ feet broke forth as exuber- 
antly as ever at the doorway of the Mercil- 
lats. 

It had been on a Monday, at an hour be- 
fore sunset, that, six years earlier, the dying 
body of Rene de Chalons,: Prince of Orange, 
had been carried into the castle of Bar-le- 
Duc, to the arms of his distracted Duchess. 
Over the hills at the back of the town it had 
been brought, through the southern gate, 
and down the beautiful new Rue des Dues 
de Bar, where all the noble ladies clustered at 
their carved windows, pale with horror at 
the sight. Every Monday since then, at an 
hour before sunset, the unhappy Duchess 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


9 


reversed the order of her terrible pilgrimage. 
Leaving the castle by the private door, at 
which the dead body of her husband had 
entered, she walked on foot up the track of 
his magnificent funeral to the church of St. 
Maze, and, after weeping at his grave, she 
returned by the Rue des Dues de Bar. 

Always on foot — always, in frost or rain, 
sunlight or mist, arrayed in the same exces- 
sive pomp of woe — this weekly apparition of 
the shrouded Princess had long ago ceased 
to interest the inhabitants of the town. 
Her Monday procession had become a nat- 
ural phenomenon, a meaningless ceremony 
which no longer impressed or excited the 
spectators or even the actors, with one excep- 
tion. The agony which shook the stately 
frame of the Duchess, the sobs which were 
audible under those depths of veil upon veil, 


10 


THE SECRET OE JSfARCTSSE-. 


showed that with her, at least, grief, wilfully 
nurtured and cultivated like a delicate plant, 
had taken entire possession of the morbid 
spirit in which it grew. 

When the train of the Duchess, conducted 
inward from the gates of St. Maze by the 
priests in attendance, had entered the church 
and had vanished behind the closing doors, 
the street recovered from its momentary 
disturbance. Well knowing that their lady 
would leave the building, as she always did, 
by the other exit, the Mercillats strolled up 
the pear-shaped Place which descended from 
St. Maze, and seated themselves gaily on the 
broad steps of the church. Rosalie still seemed 
distracted and inattentive. 

“ You listen no more than a radish,” said 
her mother, Eudoxie; “ you make no decent 
face of listening, though I speak of what I 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


11 


know and have seen with my eyes.” The 
buxom woman had just recounted an inci- 
dent of her youth to which her daughter had 
not paid even the compliment of that smile 
we spare for the twelfth-told tales of rela- 
tives. 

“ Rosalie is listening for the ting of the 
pincers round the corner,” said her young 
sister Bibianne. 

“ Be not a fool, Bibi,” replied the person 
so pointedly addressed ; and settled her plump 
hands on her lap. 

u Nay,” said Lucie, as she bobbed her in- 
fant, a swathed wave-offering, at one of the 
carven apostles on the porch-front, for the 
babe had wakened and might probably howl, 
“ nay, Narcisse is not pinching and hammer- 
ing at so late an hour as this, and why you 
must all torment Rosalie, I know not.” 


12 THE SECRET OF NARCISSEl 

“ Where is your Naroisse ?*” said her 
mother. But, without waiting for a reply* 
she went on The new grille he has made 
for the window of the Chevalier s mother is 
warped out so far that you see it if you look' 
up from the street.” 

“ Who told you so, mother ? ” asked Ro- 
salie, fiercely. 

“ Nay, one sees it for oneself — one glances 
up along the wall and it sticks but like a 
gargoyle. Well,” she continued, abandon- 
ing at once the pretence of personal inspec- 
tion, “ the robe-maker’s daughter to my lady 
told me so.” 

“ Much she knows of warpings or of ham- 
mered work, or you either, mother,” rejoined 
Rosalie ; “ why do you hawk such foolish 
tales about ? Narcisse is good enough crafts- 
man, I hope, for such a town as Bar.” 


THE SECRET OF JVARCISSE. 13 

** What do you know, Rosalie, of what 
manner of craftsman he is ? ” 

u Can I not see with my eyes ? Do I not 
know what all say of him ? Do they not 
come hanging round his booth with ‘ Pray, 
Master Narcisse ! ’ and ‘ Good Master Nar- 
cisse, ;the medal in my cap ’ ? ” 

u What do you know of him ? He is not 
one of us. Where did he come from ? ” 

“ Who knows, Rosalie, what good or bad 
work is in a town like this? ” said Bibianne. 

Rosalie stood up, lazy and angry, and 
leaned against a stone saint. 

“ You have not heard, silly Bibi, of the 
great Ligier Richier ? Eh ? Of the great- 
est, artist who ever lived in Barrois or in 
Lorraine, who has been heard of to the ends 
of the earth, and as far away as — as 
Rome ? ” 


14 


TEE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


- “ What has Master Richier to do with 
our Narcisse ? ” asked the mother. 

“ You, mother, do at least know that when 
Master Richier came here years ago, when 
we were children, to make the images in 
the church, he brought Narcisse with him as 
a ’prentice, and did nothing without him.” 

u And why, if Narcisse be so great a 
craftsman, did he leave him behind him in 
Bar when he went away again ? ” continued 
Madame Mercillat, with a nagging air of 
triumph. 

To this Rosalie had no definite answer 
ready, and she was already tired of the dispute. 
The family, though civil to her artist-lover, 
had no fondness for him. He was not of their 
class or race. They had the provincial dis- 
like of a new personality, brought into their 
circle from the unknown and therefore un- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 15 

loved world outside, the world which, if only 
you went far enough, became the hauntr of 
savages, and monsters, and hairy creatures 
that did not worship God. Narcisse * was 
not a savage, perhaps, but he came from a 
distance, from some place on the high road 
to Heathenesse. He was not Barrois, and 
why should the Barrois love him ? 

The cause of Narcisse Gerbillon’s settle- 
ment in Bar had nothing mysterious about 
it, though Mother Eudoxie might choose to 
forget the reason. Seven years before the 
time of which we are writing, the Duke 
Francis had succeeded, after much blustering 
and wheedling, in persuading the great 
sculptor of Lorraine, Ligier Richier, to quit 
for awhile the palace he had adorned for 
himself in St. Mihiel, and all the works he 
was finishing in that town, in order to come 


16 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


across the vineyards to Bar, and enrich the 
ne^v city that the Sovereign Prince was build- 
ing. Richier had come at last, like a travel- 
ling cardinal in state, with his suite of servants 
and ’prentices. His square jaw and arrogant 
eye had been seen in profile by a few aston- 
ished peasants as he crossed the hills in a 
sort of Persian sedan-chair, designed by 
himself, with the flag of that guild of which 
he was the master waving from the silvered 
roof of it. An old but spacious house close 
to the wall, lately abandoned by a noble 
family for whom a residence had been built 
in the new renaissance Rue des Dues de 
Bar, was placed at the sculptor’s service by 
the gratified Duke, who laid all his reserve 
aside in his anxiety to please the magic-work- 
ing master whom he had captured. 

Once settled in Bar, Ligier Richier was in 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 17 

no hurry to leave it, though his own cities 
of Lorraine were sighing for him ; and when 
a deputation from Toul waited upon him for 
the decoration of that ancient cathedral, he 
bid them wait three years, or be satisfied with 
a pupil. The churches of Bar and its castle 
were already full of his statues, the nobles 
strutted with his medals in their hats and his 
coins in their pockets, when the fatal field of 
St. Dizier called upon him for, fresh exertions 
of his griesly imagination and adroit hand as a 
modeller. At last, having tapped a fortune 
from the still-brimming coffers of the Duke, 
a sudden whim of fancy, or the promise of 
an interesting commission, carried him away 
to Chalons, and the palace that had been so 
noisy a workshop was left to the bats and 
mice. 

This was two years ago, and already the 
2 


. 1.8 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

visit of the great artist began to be a myth. 
One living jnenjorial of it remained by the 
side of so. much , that was in stone and 
metal. Of all bis pupils, the one whom be 
bad at first loved and trusted best, was a pale 
young man from the south, of whose ante- 
cedents no one knew anything, Narcisse 
Gerbillon. Richier apparently did not eease 
to trust him, but the master’s arrogance had 
copied the warmer relations which had ex- 
isted between himself and his ’prentice be- 
fpre the . former resolved to leave Bar. It 
was this decline in cordiality, no doubt, which 
had changed tp Narcisse the prospect of his 
life. Adoring the genius of Ligier Richier, 
to which his talent owed its own graces, he 
had determined to follow him through all his 
pilgrimages, never seeking to be himself a 
master, since he could serve the best of mas- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


19 


ters. But, if tempestuous gestures and scorn- 
ful suspicions were to be the order of their 
day, better to break the bond before it became 
too irksome. Warmly recommended by 
Richier to the Duke, Narcisse Gerbillon had 
stayed behind when the Persian carriage and 
all its convoy had taken their noisy farewell 
of the streets of Bar. 

He was amply employed, and his work, 
though without originality, was carefully and 
skilfully done. He rented for himself a 
booth under the shadow of the great church, 
and fitted that up as a workshop for the day- 
time, still living in one room of the empty 
house, near the southern wall, which had 
been Richier’s palace. His business soon 
brought him into close relations with 
Mercillat, the gunsmith, for whom he wrought 
ornamental pieces in which his art showed to 


20 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

advantage. Mercillat, a subtle man, who 
concealed great acuteness under a noisy 
demeanor, knew how to appreciate a work- 
man so adroit and punctual — one, moreover, 
who gave the gunsmith no trouble by de- 
manding for his designs any personal credit 
with the nobles, content that Mercillat should 
hear thepraise if he himself got ready money. 
When it appeared that the second daughter, 
Rosalie, had fallen in love with Narcisse, her 
father alone of the family, but with an 
authority which overbore all resistance from 
the women of the house, smiled upon the 
match. 

As the color grew fuller in the west, 
where the light grew less, the Mercillats rose 
to their feet, and prepared leisurely to de- 
scend the Place. Rosalie moved in the oppo- 
site direction, and as she discreetly turned the 


THE SECRET OF NARCIS8E< 21 

flank of the great church, she glanced at the 
booth that clung to; the corner of it, like a 
limpet to the base of some vast rock. This 
was the workshop which Narcisse rented 
from the town, and the spot where all day 
long lie was to be seen busy with his tools^ 
or gazing out in a melancholy reverie. It 
was now shuttered and locked up, as ; ^he ex- 
pected it to be. lie was beforehand with 
her, no doubt, in their innocent rendezvous. 

She went out of : the town at the upper 
gate, passing but a few belated hinds returning 
from the fields, herself the only person to pass 
outwards at so late an hour of the afternoon. 
Directly beyond the gate, the broad brow of 
the hill on the edge of which Bar is built 
was covered in all directions by what had 
once been woods. At the last ; threat of in- 
vasion, before bolting their doors against 


22 


THE SECRET OF NARC1SSE. 


the world, the Duke’s townsmen had cut 
down all the timber, partly to supply them- 
selves, in case of siege, with firewood, partly 
to deprive their enemies of the same useful 
stores. Some years had passed since then, 
and along each side of the road brushwood 
had sprung up in the neglected coppices, 
making a thin shadow from the sun and a 
delusive shelter from the rain. The floor 
of this unimpressive woodland, in which 
there grew but little grass or moss, was 
gemmed at that season of the year with a 
lank profusion of spring flowers. Rosalie 
stepped out of the deserted road, and gath- 
ered a great hunch of grape hyacinths and 
lilies of the valley ; it was a new thing for 
her to care for flowers, for which Narcisse, 
on his part, had a veritable passion. She 
had learned to gather them, at first, for his 


THE SEGB ET OF JYA-R OTSSE. 


23 


sake, and had grown to love them for their 
own. 

It was not a common thing for women to 
venture outside the walls of the town sq near 
to nightfall, and if the- family of Rosalie 
had not been wearied of restraining her, she 
would have been forbidden to do so; There 
was little danger, perhaps, yet wandering 
soldiers or vagabonds might have annoyed 
her, if Narcisse had not always conducted or 
preceded her on these occasions. The spot 
was so close to the town that a louder tur- 
moil ■ than usual on the rough pavement 
would come in diffused murmur to their ears 
as they stood there*. For Rosalies part, she 
would have been well content to have leaned, 
in full publicity, over the stall at which 
Narcisse was working, and to have counted 
that enough of a lover’s meeting. But his 


• 24 


THE SECRET OE NARCTSSE. 


romantic and more imaginative temperament 
had insisted upon greater solitude than 
■ this. " A ' , ! 

Here the solitude was indeed absolute ; so 
near as the town was’/ it yet seemed a3 dis- 
tant as those mystical cities of God which a 
man may seek forever and not have sight 
of. The point at which the lovers stayed or 
met was just where the road from the town 
crossed the path from Sermaize to Nangois- 
le-Petit r a path little trodden, except in high 
noon, by a few pedlars or friars. At this 
spot a huge crucifix was raised, the post of 
which had sunken a little in the loose soil 
and now leaned forward, as though its heavy 
arm and the terrible load they bore would 
descend upon the passer-by. The image 
was of colossal size, rudely painted, with 
lamentable dripping clusters of red hair, and 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


25 


a crimson trickle of blood drawn like a 
thread from the wounds in the crossed feet. 
It had been carved, before the Italian taste 
came into the country, by some rough car- 
penter of Lorraine, who designed no more 
than to imitate, as well as he might, some 
horror of the wars that continued to haunt 
his memory. 

It was strange that these lovers should 
choose the shadow of this awful symbol for 
their trys ting-place, yet, so complete is the 
indifference bom of habit, the phantasmal or 
even the religious horror of this cross never 
affected either of them. To each it was 
merely a landmark, unless when Narcisse, 
unwontedly professional, might chance to 
remark on the clumsy workmanship of the 
limbs or speculate on the probability that, 
after some heavy night of rain, the whole 


26 


THE SECRET OF NARC1SSE. 


structure might be discovered sprawling, 
across the roadway. i i 

Out of the brushwood Rosalie emerged* 
at the< well-known- spot, to find the solitude 
absolutely unbroken. Narcisse had not 
come. Where then could he be ? She pei> 
ceived at once that he had failed to keep his 
appointment. After shutting up his work- 
shop, he had gone— ^whither ? Certainly 
not to the feet of the cross at the high 
meeting of the roads. Rosalie felt her 
whole body invaded by that physical sense 
of distress which comes in youth only, and 
solely to those who love not wisely, when 
they are suddenly prevented from seeing the 
one they have been expecting to see. It is 
a disappointment so transitory, a grief so 
puerile and unreasonable, so inconceivable 
to all who are not suffering from the very 


THE SECli ET OF NAB Cl USE. 


21 - 


malady of love, that we are apt to think of 
it as trifling. But to the sufferer it is ab- 
surdly poignant, and as overwhelming as the 
irrational despair of a little child. In this 
town of Bar, with all the quiet world so 
close about them, occasions for such disap- 
pointment were rare. Rosalie stood stark 
and cold, under the coarse painted feet of the 
huge image, and her brain refused to act. 
But, all around her, the evening murmur of 
the wind began to rise in the broad wood- 
land, whispering, sighing, grumbling. The 
light grew less in the west. She was alone, 
she was in despair, and she fled from her 
solitude. 

That brief flight was an agony. Down all 
the open alleys of the wood came chuckling 
sounds, rapid advance of unseen feet, shock 
of muffled wings, the infinite trembling and 


28 THE SECRET OF NARClSM. 

gasping of beings without form or substance. 
Devils probed the thiii foliage of the lime- 
trees -'to reach her, devils leaned, oil one hand 
and laughed at her from the entrance of 
rabbit-holes. It grew and grew, till the 
whole air and earth became a vast imbroglio 
of annoyance and temptation, and at length, 
as she fled, she heard behind her the great 
crucified figure from the cross itself pursu- 
ing her, limping after her on its pierced and 
naked feet, stretching to seize her with those 
coarse arms from which the blood was trick- 
ling. In vain she tried to console herself, 
to murmur a prayer. All she could feel 
was that God and Narcisse had alike for- 
saken her, that she was given up to devils, 
abandoned within that spiritual riot of the 
night to which no girl in her senses should 
ever venture to resign herself. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSI 29 

It was all over in three minutes. Once 
in sight of the open doorway in the south- 
ern gate, her supernatural fears gave way to 
a mere paroxysm of anger and of jealousy. 
Where could Narcisse be? With what 
other girl? Crudely and stupidly enough, 
but irresistibly, that question rose for the 
first time in her, spirit, and settled itself to 
stay there. Who her rival could be, 
whether there were not a dozen reasons of a 
natural sort to account for the disappearance 
of Narcisse, she scarcely ! asked herself . The 
corroding acid; of jealousy, a liquid fire, be- 
gan to steal through her veins. With it 
came the determination to punish him. She 
would not look for him; she would not even 
take the street which would bring her close 
to his house ; she would go home, and wait 
for his explanations. That he would ex- 


30 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


plain , and that she would promptly forgive 
him, were not matters of doubt. 

She paused at the door of the church, and 
went in, to compose herself a little before 
presenting herself to the women of her 
household. Inside the church it was almost 
dark. A young priest was moving in front 
of the altar, instructing two acolytes in the 
lighting of the tall candles. One by one 
the faint yellow stars of light appeared, wak- 
ing still fainter silvery reflections among the 
holy vessels. Around the aisles, stopping at 
each of the sacred stations, a little girl was 
wandering, belated and inattentive, doing 
her enforced round of prayers after tardy 
confession. Rosalie sat and smelt the light 
odor of incense, while her heart sank more 
and more to its normal motion, and her eyes 
grew clear after her dizzy racing. Round 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


81 


her, behind new stone screens of Renaissance 
design, little in keeping with the Gothic 
splendor of the church, were half seen and 
half divined the gorgeous tombs of all the 
Dukes of Bar. In the furthest chapel, only 
the eastern wall of which was within sight, 
she, could just perceive the corner of the en- 
tablature of the most magnificent of these 
monuments, that raised by the widowed 
Duchess to Rene de Chalons. As she was 
inattentively gazing in this direction, a slight 
shadow seemed to flutter across the chapel, 
to subside, to move again ; and at length the 
hand and arm of Narcisse, raised with a wide 
gesture familiar in him, appeared for a mo- 
ment in the chapel. 

To whom was he gesticulating ? Who 
was his companion ? In the happiness of 
finding him thus unexpectedly these ques- 


32 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


lions scarcely troubled her serenity. The 
priest and the boys were gone now, leaving 
the altar flashing as with a pendant curtain 
of stars. Rosalie rose discreetly, and crept 
towards the chapel of Rene. She would, at 
least, satisfy herself whose company it was 
that her lover preferred to hers. When she 
reached the doorway, Narcisse was standing 
motionless, in a reverie, and he was alone. 

In the centre of the chapel rose the amaz- 
ii:g monument which Ligier Richier had 
made at the command of Anne of Lorraine. 
Of the florid accessories which supported the 
central figure, little could be seen in the fad- 
ing light ; that and that alone arrested the 
eye. Carefully carved out of two blocks of 
the creamy white stone of St. Mihiel, and re- 
lieved against an ermine-dotted shroud of 
black basalt, a statue of the skeleton of the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 38 

soldier-prince, whose actual bones were grow- 
ing green within the tomb below, leaped 

■ . A A J j 1 

into the light. At his own special desire, 
the prince was represented not as he was 
when he died, but as he would be three years 
after his decease — that is to say, with the 
osseous structure still lightly covered, here 
and there, as by veils of gauze and webs of 
gossamer, by the last filaments of skin and 
flesh. The attitude which the sculptor had 
chosen was so singular and so imaginative 
that the design was preserved from much of 
what would else have been grotesque and 
hideous in its composition. With the legs 
close together, the body drawn up and the 
left hand outstretched above the head to its 
full length, the whole figure seemed vita- 
lized and elastic. It was Death itself, but in 
an ecstasy of life. In the uplifted hand was 


34 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


held a small box of chased silver, empty at 
present, but destined to receive the heart of 
Anne of Lorraine upon the decease of that 
princess ; the empty right hand was pressed 
hard to the ribs of the skeleton, to the spot 
where that other faithful heart had beaten 
so loudly. 

Familiar as Rosalie was with this statue, it 
seemed to her this evening possessed of un- 
usual distinction and beauty. The silence of 
Narcisse intimidated her ; she dared not 
speak so loudly as to attract his attention. 
Through all her flight and agony, she lmd 
preserved her posy of lilies of the valley and 
grape hyacinths, and she held them still, hot 
and flagged, in her strong hand. She now 
ventured forward, and laid them in a heap 
between the feet of the skeleton. At this, 
Narcisse finally looked round, and gazed at 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 35 

her with a gentle glance of surprise. She 
had expected excuses, a hurried series of ex- 
planations and exculpations. Instead of this, 
with his wide gesture, he captured her 
shoulders in his arm, and drawing her softly 
to him, continued his rapt examination of the 
articulations of the statue. 

Totally pacified, all her troubles, as it 
were, washed away by a warm tide of satis- 
faction, she let her head lean on his neck in 
silence. At last, as if delicately to draw 
him down from heights unattainable to her 
ignorance, she pulled a curling lock of his 
reddish hair with her lips. F or only answer, 
he lifted one lily and one grape hyacinth 
from the heap at the skeleton’s feet, and 
stuck them in his shirt. This broke the 
spell, and still leaning there, in the growing 
darkness, she asked : 


36 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


“ Why did you not come ? ” 
u Come whither ? ” he asked again. 
u Nay/’ she pouted, “ you know well 
enough — to our meeting-place under our 
Lord of the crossways.” 

“ It was never in my mind,” he answered, 
with a simplicity so perfect that she was 
finally disarmed. “ I worked on late to- 
night, and when I locked up the booth, I 
turned in here.” 

u To pray ? ” she asked. 

“ No,” he said ; “ to look again at some 
of Master Eichier’s work. I wanted to be 
sure ” 

“ What did you want to be sure about ? ” 
But again Narcisse, though her arms were 
round his body, had passed from her in 
thought. He was curiously observing, with 
a knit brow, how the ribs were joined to the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


37 


sides of the statue, in a series of bold hoops 
or notches, not indeed closely studied from 
Nature, but full of practical cleverness. It 
was some time before they spoke again. 
Rosalie was not very skilful in understand- 
ing what she felt. Yet she could not hut be 
dimly conscious that the broken appoint- 
ment under the cross was so small a thing to 
Narcisse that he could not comprehend its 
importance to her. To her the remainder 
of the day was nothing ; to him the meeting 
was but an agreeable episode with which art 
or business might have to interfere. 

After their rendezvous, it was never she, 
but always he, who noted the passing of the 
hour, and suggested, in a placid way, that 
they ought to return. But, on this occasion, 
it was Rosalie who made the first movement 
to be gone. Outside, upon the steps of the 


38 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


church, the twilight was still surprisingly 
strong ; and Rosalie, who had counted on a 
parting kiss in the darkness, drew back, a 
little abashed, from her own thought. They 
parted, smiling, with complete decorum- 


MM SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


39 


II. 

Narcisse went back in the fading light to 
his house, turned the key in the lock, as- 
cended the echoing staircase, and let himself 
into the large chamber which had now for 
two years been his home. He lighted a 
small fire on the hearth, and crouched beside 
it till the place was quite dark save where 
the flame flickered. He brought out his 
food, and at first left it on the floor, un- 
cooked ; then at length returned to it, and 
prepared it, making a hasty and uncomfort- 
able meal. Thrown across the bed, there 
lay a rude sort of southern zither, a small 
instrument, shaped like a heart and strung 
with eight strings. Nothing of this kind 


40 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


had ever been seen at Bar until Narcisse 
brought it with him, and he was shy of pro- 
ducing it, as it seemed in some sort the 
token of his alien fortunes. Now, as he 
arose from before the fire, and paced to and 
fro in the great empty room, he snatched the 
zither from his bed, and ever and anon struck 
upon it a certain air of his own country, 
always the same. There would have been 
something mysterious to a stranger in this 
huge, four-square 'apartment, dimly lighted 
from the hearth, in which a single gigantic 
shadow leaped and danced about the walls, 
and a single fitful tune wailed from an un- 
known instrument. If the movement and 
the sound seemed singular, they only the 
more fitly illustrated the curious agitation 
that fluttered in the veins of Narcisse. 

At last his restlessness took him to the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


41 


window. The night was chilly and obscure. 
No stars were visible ; only, after long star- 
ing out, he saw the dead, high line of the 
wall beyond the garden, and a few vague 
masses of a blacker blackness which were 
plane-trees shivering in the wind. As he 
gazed, a crazy wish came into his head, a de- 
sire to throw his window open, to strike upon 
his zither, and as he struck to walk out upon 
the black night air, to skip, playing all the 
while, from roof to roof across the dim and 
twinkling streets, to enjoy a kind of solitary 
sabbath dancing a little way above the noc- 
turnal town ; not precisely to soar or fly, but 
to float, like a loose bladder in the wind, 
bumping from roof to roof ; or like the little 
painted angels, with trumpets and long robes, 
that play on rebecks hung round their necks, 
and float about at martyrdoms just out of 


42 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


the executioner’s reach. None of these 
images, all of which passed through his 
mind, exactly interpreted the wish of Nar- 
cisse, which had in it a sort of lawlessness as 
well, a kind of revolt against the restrictions 
of civic manners, a desire to he out in the 
darkness on some innocent devil’s errand. 
And then he thought of the stories current 
of eccentric men and women to whom in 
their solitude the tlevil had come and hidden 
them fly with him, to explore all the secret 
provinces of the night. He shuddered, and 
turned from the window. 

But as he stood before the fire — his legs 
strangely brilliant in the light, the polished 
edge of the zither flashing like silver, the 
veins in relief on his long white hands, yet 
his face in complete darkness as though still 
under the shadow of that satanic suggestion 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


43 


— a wholesome thought occurred to him, and 
a memory rushed back to his mind. He laid 
the zither gently down upon the table, and 
prepared in haste for a ceremony which had 
recalled itself to him. He lighted a candle, 
and opened a clamped box in which he kept 
his treasures. He changed his working 
clothes for a blue cloth jacket which revealed 
a white doublet underneath, and for the 
close-fitting hosen which were then in fash- 
ion. His graceful figure was well shown off 
by this distinguished and modest dress. He 
had recollected that his friend, the Duke’s 
trumpeter, had a gala supper at his house 
that night, and that he himself was expressly 
bidden to it. 

Out in the narrow dark lane the wind 
blew cold. He wrapped his mantle closer 
round his shoulders. The trumpeter lived 


44 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


in the lower part of the town, but Narcisse 
made his way first to his own booth under 
St. Maze. It was all silent and doubly dark 
beneath the shadow of the enormous minster. 
Not a sound vibrated from the huge hollow 
shell that hummed so often, with such a 
choral pulse, through the long working 
hours of the day, murmuring above and 
around him with the various services of the 
church, and cheering him in his workshop 
with a whisper of protection. Now the vast 
building, looming through the night, seemed 
dead and awful, the abode of unconsidered 
terrors. Narcisse unlocked the booth, and 
groped his way in. Sitting down at his work- 
table, he felt about until he found some steel 
springs and other mechanism ; without a can- 
dle, gradually growing used to the darkness, he 
sat in silence there for a long time, testing 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


45 


some arrangement of these materials with his 
fingers. He seemed to become absorbed in 
this odd labor, and to forget that time was 
passing. 

At last he rose suddenly, and put his work 
away. Stealthily, as he had come, he left 
the booth, crossed the dim Place, on which 
rain was by this time falling, and descended 
the rough and twinkling street. The trum- 
peter lived in the house of his ancestors, an 
old construction, built round a courtyard, 
and set close under the wall of the Ducal 
palace, up into which, indeed, a staircase led 
from the back of it. For generations past 
the same family had enjoyed this same office 
at the little Court. Father had taught son 
the mysterious art of blowing music through 
tubes of brass and silver, and each had 
handed down to his successor a richer col- 


46 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


lection of instruments and a fuller code 
of traditions. The present man had come 
young to the honors of the trumpet, and he 
was still unmarried, the very type of a jolly 
bachelor, the most sociable of all the rich 
burgesses of Bar. 

Narcisse was hesitating by which of the 
inner doors to enter, since both seemed re- 
verberating with jollity, when that on the 
right hand burst open, and a great dog, car- 
rying half a fowl in his mouth, rushed be- 
tween the legs of the fresh visitor, followed 
by a man’s cap and a volley of humorous 
abuse. Narcisse stood in the doorway, 
dazzled with the lights, bewildered with the 
noise. 

“ Hah ! here lie is at last ! Scoundrel, to 
be so late ! The very dog has been anxious 
about thee, and was carrying thee a bone 


TEE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


47 


when we all thought, poor wretch, that he 
was stealing ! ” cried a hearty voice from 
the interior of the room. 

The scene that Narcisse had so suddenly 
broken in upon was a lively one. Twelve or 
thirteen persons of both sexes were seated on 
benches round a narrow table, which was 
laden with good things. A copper chandelier 
above the door at which he was standing 
threw down a yellow light over the group, 
and lent its aid to two or three tall wax can- 
dles in bronze candlesticks, which guttered 
in the night air upon the table. 

u Come in, come in, and shut the door ! ” 
shouted the host ; “ come in, before the wax 
drops down on your fine blue coat, and be- 
fore we have all caught a fever from the 
cold wind. Come in, and sit you down here 
by me.” 


48 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE . 


The room was richly furnished, and as a 
peculiarity of the house, the eye instantly 
sought out the variety of curious tubes that 
hung by leathern bandaliers from nails 
upon the walls. The light, which was not 
strong anywhere, was all concentrated upon 
the tablecloth and on the faces that gathered 
around it, yet the brown gleam of the walls 
was lit up with golden flashes and sparkles 
on the strange instruments that hung fan- 
tastically there. The young trumpeter was 
exceedingly proud of this collection. Here 
were not only the trumpets and clarions 
of the day, hut grotesque and battered in- 
struments of a bygone time, the presence of 
which upon his walls testified to the antiquity 
of his family in their profession. Here was a 
whole row of bucines , those long, straight 
trumpets of bell-metal, slowly opening to the 


THE SECRET OF EAR CIS SE. 49 

end, which had once been used for signals 
in camp, and even now were occasionally 
blown in processions of Ducal etiquette. 
Here were the curled and slender horns 
of brass, with their bell over the man’s 
shoulder, sweet in tone as those on which 
the minstrels of the Prince of Antioch blew 
their swan -songs before the gates of Jeru- 
salem. 

At the moment that Narcisse entered, the 
trumpeter had launched upon his favorite 
topic. He started ever and anon from his 
chair to exemplify the various sounds, the 
sharp and resonant note of the graille , the 
solemn organ-harmony of the araine , the 
piercing cry of the clairon. He had just suc- 
ceeded in persuading Mercillat, the gunsmith, 
who did not love to be made ridiculous, to 

put to his lips the ivory mouthpiece of that 
4 


50 


THE SECRET OF NAB CIS SE. 


huge leathern worm, with its thin pipe of 
metal, which was called the serpent , and in 
those late days had come to be only blown 
in church. Mercillat puffed and strained, 
but the tube hung inert, and not a sound 
proceeded from it. When the gunsmith, 
between blowing and fuming, was at the 
purple verge of apoplexy, the trumpeter 
snatched the instrument from him, touched 
it with his mouth, and called forth a succes- 
sion of notes so clear, so piercingly sweet, 
that they seemed rather the music of some 
mysterious bird in the forest than of this 
uncouth coil of leather. 

Delighted with his triumph, the glowing 
young trumpeter hurried back to his seat at 
the top of the table, and was descanting on 
the mysterious virtues of the central piece in 
his collection, a stained and beaten oliphant 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 51 

or hunting-horn of elephant’s tusk, bound 
with bands of thin gold, such a horn as Ro- 
land blew at Roncevaux, and the very one, 
so he declared with an oath, from which his 
sainted grandfather, long since with God, 
sent such a blast at the battle of V audemont 
that all the vanguard of the Emperor broke 
up and fled. As he sat and talked in his 
eager way, Narcisse glanced sideways at him 
with great content. He had long been 
strangely drawn to this red-blooded, braggart 
child of the Barrois, this genial and gener- 
ous fellow, with his handsome face and rich 
muscular frame that seemed to burn with 
vitality. A very tender comradeship had 
sprung up between these two young men, so 
utterly unlike in temperament, in nationality, 
in physique. The coarse jollity of the peo- 
ple of the town commonly jarred upon Nar- 


52 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


cisse, who could give them no change in 
this their own currency ; but as he sat here 
at the feast to-night, the trumpeter’s large 
hand, brought emphatically, half caressingly 
down upon the knee of Narcisse, filled him 
with a vague contentment of spirit, and 
seemed the homely circumstance in all this 
alien drama. 

But the inner door was flung open, and 
another familiar face appeared. Carrying a 
large open work gridiron in her two hands, 
and laughing loudly, Rosalie hastened to the 
table, and deposited the savory results of 
her cookery on a silver platter before their 
host. Famous for her art in broiling meat 
after the favorite fashion of the time, Rosa- 
lie had volunteered to prepare for this laugh- 
ing Esau and his friends the food that their 
soul loved. She was greeted with a cheer of 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


53 


applause, but as she rushed forwards, she 
saw that Narcisse was there, and her good- 
humor was complete. She took, as by right, 
her place on the other side of him. The 
trumpeter was now magnificent indeed. 
With his feathered hat upon his head, he 
carved the meat, and as he pressed the finest 
bits upon guest after guest, he dexterously 
handed the platter with one hand, while he 
bowed with his hat in the other, as he had 
seen the Duke do at. ceremonious dinners. 
The air was perfumed with the delicate scent 
of the meat, and Rosalie’s masterpiece was 
divided amid a shower of compliments and 
pleasantries. 

With this savory resumption of the feast, 
the spirits of the company, which had been 
excellent before, rose to a very animated 
pitch. The flushed serving-boy, who made 


54 


THE SECHET OF JSTARCISSE. 


rather a rough but an exceedingly conscien- 
tious substitute for the pages at supper in 
the castle overhead, had enough to do in 
keeping every one supplied with wine. His 
boots clapping hither and thither on the 
floor, he seized the tall, narrow glasses as 
the drink grew low in them, tossed their 
heel-taps into a basin, and refilled the glasses 
from jugs standing in a silver cooler on the 
floor. Such a spirit of good-humor pre- 
vailed that the flesher’s wife forebore to scold 
the lad when, in his excess of zeal, he sprin- 
kled her sleeve with wine-drops. It was a 
special vintage, at least three years old, a 
pink wine with an odor of the grape-flower 
hanging about it, delicious and innocent- 
seeming, but headier than an inexperienced 
tongue might have conceived. 

The air grew hot, the candles guttered 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


55 


their wax down the flutings of the tall candle- 
sticks. The manners of the company became 
a little relaxed. Lucie was seen to hold a 
glass of wine to the bps of a young metal- 
caster, in whom she was believed to take a 
more than sisterly interest, and whose hands 
seemed at the moment to be engaged else- 
where. Her husband’s back was turned to 
her, for he was burning a nut at the end of 
a fork for the delectation of two girls, who 
laughed over-rosily, with louder merriment 
than the jest demanded. The jokes began 
to grow less pointed, the allusions more em- 
barrassing. The trumpeter, as a watchful 
host, saw that the moment had arrived for a 
division. 

“ Bring in the hanap,” he called to the 
serving-boy, and every one turned with in- 
terest in the direction of the door. The boy 


56 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


came back, his eyes starting out of his head, 
overwhelmed with the weight of the goblet 
and the dignity of his office. The hanap 
proved to be a barbaric cup of silver-gilt, 
ornamented with old-fashioned enamel-work 
in red and white, filled with spiced ale. It 
was put down before the trumpeter. 

“ There has been blood in here,” said the 
trumpeter solemnly, as he took off the cover ; 
and although almost every one at table 
knew the familiar tale, the refreshing shud- 
der that he wished to awaken ran round. 
There was silence at once where all had been 
so boisterously noisy. 

“ This hanap,” he went on specially 
addressing Narcisse and Rosalie, who had 
not, perhaps, heard the story before, “ has 
had blood in it. It belonged to my great- 
uncle Remi, who was trumpeter .to the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


57 


Duke’s great-grandfather. He was a mad 
fellow, it seems, and one night when he was 
following the Duke with all his baggage at 
the siege of Toul, he filled this goblet with 
wine and threw in a gold piece. Any one 
who could drain off that at a draught and 
come down to the gold should have the coin. 
Several young men tried and failed; there 
was still wine over the gold piece. At last 
a hoy took up the hanap full and drank, 
drank, drank till there was only a little red 
drop around the piece of money. The other 
fellows were so mad, that one of them struck 
him on the head as he was grinning ; and his 
blood trickled so deep into the hanap that 
the gold piece was covered again, and he 
died afterwards of the blow. It used to 
make my grand-uncle laugh till the tears 
came into his eyes to tell that tale.” 


58 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


As they had so often done before, the 
guests laughed aloud, some of them a little 
obsequiously, at this rough old jest. Rosalie 
smiled, as in courtesy bound, though the 
story scarcely added to her gusto as the 
hanap went round from mouth to mouth, 
and each guest, standing up, drank the trum- 
peter’s health in it, with success to the noble 
art of trumpeting. When Narcisse’s turn 
came, he alone could neither laugh nor smile. 
“ There has been blood in it ! ” rang still in 
his ears, and he scarcely touched the drink. 
Though he sat between his friend and his 
sweetheart, he was ill attuned for the even- 
ing’s mirth ; nevertheless, he tried to an- 
swer with civil animation such few remarks 
as were directed to him. But the feast was 
now ended, and the serving-boy ran round 
the table with his jug and basin, pouring 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


59 


water over the fingers of each guest in turn. 
It was the sign for rising from table, and 
when this ceremony was concluded, all stood 
up and gathered into knots. 

“ What shall we do ? ” said every one to 
his neighbor. One man suggested a game 
of bowls in the alley, and shouted to the 
trumpeter to have his torches lighted. But 
one of the girls went to the door, and the 
night seemed cold and windy. “ What 
shall we do ? ” and the host began to grow 
anxious lest his guests should lose their gust 
of cheerfulness. 

u Let us dance,” cried Lucie, and the 
metal-caster echoed her wish, his arm already 
stealing round her waist. But no one had 
prepared the floor, nor even sprinkled sweet 
herbs upon it. The table was cleared to the 
side of the room, and a desultory couple or 


60 


THE SECRET OF NAIiCISSE. 


two spun round. But the general wish 
did not seem to incline to this informal 
dancing. 

“ What shall we do ? ” said the flesher’s 
wife. “ Let us play at the king who cannot 
lie.” 

“Yes! yes!” cried all the girls; “but 
then the king may be a queen ?” 

This was agreed to, and the lots were 
drawn. Whoever drew the marked stick 
should he king or queen, as the case might 
be. To his manifest vexation, the trumpeter 
drew the stick. He could not be kino- in 

o 

his own house, and he begged leave to nom- 
inate another monarch. 

“ Yes ! yes ! ” they shouted; and then, to 
almost every one’s disappointment, it was 
Narcisse whom he named. 

“ What must I do ? ” said the sculptor, 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 61 

who alone of those present had never seen 
the game played. 

“ You must wear a cloth crown on your 
head, carry a long spoon for a sceptre, and 
go stalking round the room. When you 
tap any one on the shoulder, he or she must 
ask you a question before you can count 
ten. If the question is asked in time, you 
must, answer it openly and truly.” 

A sort of turban was rapidly wound up to 
serve for crown, and Narcisse stepped forth 
on his comic travels with a very dignified 
air. There were squeaks of hope and dread 
when he approached a group of girls ; as he 
passed the men they had the most stolid air 
of indifference. Every one, however, was 
preparing a question, and not unfrequently 
with so much care, that when the sudden 
tap of spoofi to shoulder came the elaborate 


&2 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

sentence would not out. For this failure 
there was a forfeit. Such questions as were 
delivered in season were mostly of a very triv- 
ial and obvious kind. A few were crudely 
coarse, giving occasion to the more decor- 
ous of the party to glance upon the ground, 
and merely echo the roar of mirth with a 
titter. Good-nature reigned, and there was 
no real intention of offence. 

Narcisse had skilfully nonplussed several 
of the would-be wits, and had answered 
adroitly when he had to answer. But Eu- 
doxie’s question was : 

u Of whom art thou thinking ? ” 

Kosalie looked self-conscious, and then 
puzzled and slightly vexed, for the answer 
was : 

“ Of the most silent of her sex.” 

It was impossible so to describe the talka- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


63 


tive Rosalie, and half a dozen frank voices 
at once assured her that she was not in the 
sculptor’s thoughts. She was ready to be 
angry, hut he looked across to her with 
such an open countenance of friendly merri- 
ment, that she joined in the laugh against 
herself. 

“ Thou art sworn on the sceptre to speak 
the truth, Narcisse,” was all she said in rep- 
robation. 

The metal-caster was tapped next, and 
had his question ready. 

“ I see the future in my mind’s eye. 
What is it?” he asked. 

“ There is blood in it,” said Narcisse 
mechanically, before he had time to think. 

u The trumpeter was understood to be ex- 
empt, but while he peered into a cupboard 
to bring forth some bottle as thick as him- 


64 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

self, his broad back was smartly bandied 
with the bowl of the spoon. 

Busy as be was and distracted, bis wits 
were ready. Before the ten numbers bad 
left the lips of Narcisse be bad blurted 
out : 

“ Foul play ! But — in what company 
dost thou best like to be ? ” 

“ With no man’s maid who shall be all 
men’s mistress,” replied Narcisse, and then 
blushed very red with anxiety, for be 
thought — as we always do if we speak in 
riddles of our secrets — that all must guess 
what he meant. The company stared 
blankly, but the old cordwainer in the cor- 
ner, with many noddings of bis long gray 
beard, gave it to be understood that be saw 
the jest, and that in faith it was a mighty 
true and pregnant saying. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


65 


The only other question and reply that 
will bear to be repeated were given a little 
later on in the game. At length, when 
almost all were tapped, Narcisse succeeded 
in suddenly capturing Rosalie. She had 
her challenge ready. 

u Where hast thou been most happy ? ” 

“ There where I have followed my fancy,” 
he replied. 

The company had enough of these enig- 
mas and of the game. The king took off the 
crown which hampered his overheated fore- 
head, and with his broad gesture he laid his 
sceptre aside. There was a general feeling 
that another man, one more truly of their 
kin, would have made a merrier monarch, 
and have played in a lustier fashion, with 
more whim and farce. But no one spoke 
rudely, because of Rosalie and of their host, 


66 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

and because Mercillat did not approve of any 
disrespect to his best craftsman. There was 
fresh discussion now as to what was to be 
done, and the young fellows clamored for 
music. The fiddles were pulled out of their 
cases, a ring formed round the performers, 
and the master of the house was persuaded 
to take part with one of his resonant curled 
tubes of metal in the concert. But some- 
thing seemed missing. 

“ You miss a shrill kind of note in the 
harmony,” said the gunsmith ; “ ’tis too loud 
and brassy. What you lack is the part of 
something tingling. I know not what you 
call it, in the art of music, but I would fain 
have a cricket in the corner.” 

“ The cricket would be Gerbillard’s lute — 
what do you call it ? That is gay and light, 
with a twang like a wire.” 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


67 


u Where is your — your ? ” said Rosalie, 

for no one in Bar was easy with the name of 
the strange southern instrument. “ Where 
is it, Narcisse?” 

“I will fetch it,” he said,. and he started 
to do so. At the door he glanced back for 
a moment into the room. The candles, still 
but half burned, were crumbling with the 
heat, and giving the serving-lad work enough 
to do in snuffing them. Ranged behind the 
players, they threw odd shadows on the wall, 
profiles of instruments between the knees 
and in the arms of young men, gigantic 
phantom elbows that sped up and down as 
the possessors of these lutes tuned the strings. 
There was a babble of loud voices, treble 
and bass, the shuffle of feet, the squeak of 
fiddle-bows, the full tide of noise in a com- 
pany that is at its ease and has lost all traces 


68 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


of restraint. The candle-light made warmer 
the hues of all those flushed faces, drew out 
the colors of the Barrois gala-dresses. 

Narcisse glanced once more. The trum- 
peter had passed about some hospitable duty 
into an inner room. Rosalie’s back was 
turned from the door, and she was in dispute 
with her sister Lucie upon some local matter. 
It rushed upon Narcisse as with a flood that 
this was Bar, his lodging, not his home — the 
life in which he was a pilgrim and a stranger. 
His absence would not make any difference 
to any one. He opened the door stealthily, 
and turned his back to the riot and the light, 
the shriek of the music and the perfumes in 
the girls’ hair. In a moment lip was alone 
in the darkness, in the cold air of the court- 
yard, under a dim vault of colorless immen- 
sity. 


TIIE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


69 


Something rubbed against his legs. It 
was the dog, long ago tired of its enforced 
exile from the warmth and food, but still 
slightly conscious of an evil reputation. As 
clearly as it could, it explained to Narcisse 
that it was all a misunderstanding about that 
fowl, and glanced around, as dogs will do, as if 
inviting a personal inspection of its innocence. 
Drizzling rain was falling, but when Narcisse 
was out in the dull, blank street, he was still 
conscious of the dog, a whitish mass, moving 
just in front of his steps. He went back to the 
house, and let the dog in, opening for a moment 
a door which let out a tide of light and noise. 
He glanced back as he left a second time, and 
saw the window hastily unshuttered. Rosalie’s 
face appeared dark and flat, with an aureole 
of candle-li ght in the edges of her hair. 
She had heard the door reopen, and had fan- 


70 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


cied that already Narcisse might be return- 
ing with the zither. Although she had been 
so undemonstrative while he was there, she 
had no sooner turned to find him gone than 
her heart began to beat out in wave upon 
wave of longing for his presence. She was 
already fretting at his delay, though he had 
scarcely left her a moment before. But she 
saw nothing in the darkness, not even the 
smile he gave her as he fled away into the 
wetness of the night, and she turned back to 
bear as well as she could the tedium of wait- 
ing for him. 

She waited and waited, but he did not 
come. His absence was unnoticed by the 
rest of the company, for the trumpeter had 
discovered among his treasures a little old 
stringed instrument easily tuned, which 
completely fulfilled the purpose for which 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


71 


Narcisse’s zither was required. An hour 
went by, with a succession of those short 
pieces, so sweet and positive, all gurglings 
and silver prattle, of which the chamber 
music of the day consisted. Once the door 
had opened and Rosalie had half risen from 
her seat in her impatience, hut it was only 
the Abbe, bringing his viola to swell the 
concert. He came in smiling, and was 
greeted with respectful warmth ; he had 
judiciously waited until the turmoil of the 
feast had declined, and until music had 
somewhat etherealized the boisterousness of 
his flock. 

“ Where is your Narcisse ? ” said one of 
the girls to her, insolently. 

Rosalie scarcely glanced in her direction, 
and then, with admirable coolness, mur- 
mured ; 


72 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


“ Eh ? Oh ! he went more than an hour 
ago-” 

“ But why does he not come back ? ” 
u He did not mean to come back/’ Rosalie 
coldly replied. “ He said good-night to 
me under his voice, not to disturb the com- 
pany.” 

In her heart she was asking herself what 
it was that had happened to Narcisse, and 
who could thus have enchanted him. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


73 


III. 

Next morning the sunlight was brightly 
suffused through a pearly firmament of 
broken cloud. Rosalie, pausing in the 
course of her household work, stopped for 
a moment at the doorway to gaze up the 
street in the clear air. There was no excuse 
for her to meddle with Narcisse at his busi- 
ness thus early in the day, yet she could not 
resist glancing in his direction. The shop 
was out of sight, hidden by a buttress of 
the church, but her attention was attracted 
by a point of intense vermilion color against 
the gray church wall in front of her lover’s 
booth ; this red object was absolutely motion- 
less, and below it the sunlight fell on a 


74 


THE SEC BET OF NARCISSE. 


stripe of golden hue. Her curiosity was 
excited, and she could not resist stepping 
out into the Place, and wandering a few 
paces upwards towards the church. 

The mystery was easily explained. The 
trumpeter, with a scarlet feather in his dark 
green velvet cap, had been chatting with 
Narcisse at his workshop, and was now being 
induced to stand at a little distance in pro- 
file, to serve as a model. Drawn onwards 
by her inquisitive mood, Rosalie passed the 
steps of St. Maze, and turning the corner 
found herself in front of the little booth 
where Narcisse was seated, his brows some- 
what bent, sketching from his friend the 
trumpeter. A rough lump of red wax was 
piled on the hoard at his side, and with his 
long supple fingers, by aid of the little box- 
wood spatula that modellers use, he was 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


75 


making a profile head for the clasp of a 
belt. There was not a word said. The 
trumpeter nodded as he saw the girl ap- 
proach, but did not disturb a single muscle 
of his face. Narcisse greeted her, out of 
his full grey eyes, with a look of discreet 
affection, and motioned that she should lean, 
out of eye-shot, on the other side of his 
table. The sketching went on in silence, 
until Narcisse, swinging backwards a mo- 
ment, came up out of his trance of com- 
position, like a diver out of the depths of 
the sea, and regained consciousness of the 
condition of things. 

He glanced at Rosalie, who was watching 
him, and then at the trumpeter, who was still 
admirably rigid, gazing away at right angles, 
in an attitude of studied and exaggerated 
grace, perfectly immovable. A very strange 


76 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


notion passed through the sculptor’s brain. 
He contemplated his two visitors with a sort 
of critical attention. The trumpeter, a good 
fellow if ever a good fellow breathed, was a 
handsome specimen of the Barrois race. 
His copious dark brown hair stood out in 
curly clouds under his close cap ; his coun- 
tenance was perfectly handsome, except that 
the muscles of his cheeks were already 
slightly relaxed with the exercise of his pro- 
fession. His thick neck, hairy to the nape, 
with its very white skin, already showed 
signs of the coarseness which would presently 
invade the whole of his comely person. But 
in this, the close of his youth, he was still a 
magnificent specimen of his kind. So, 
Narcisse reflected in a moment, was Bosalie 
— alike in color, in texture, in temperament 
— Barrois both of them, of the purest water. 


TIIE SECRET OF NAB CIS SE. 


77 


Would it not have been better, more seemly, 
be said to himself, in this flash of odd emo- 
tion, that these two should belong to one 
another than that he should come between 
them, he with his foreign nature, his totally 
distinct physical characteristics ? As this 
idea passed through his brain, he glanced at 
each of them and he smiled. 

He smiled — to see how little either of them 
seemed desirous of any rearrangement of 
their relations. The trumpeter, who had 
borne the constrained position and monu- 
mental stillness of a model for so long a time 
without a murmur, supported by the glorious 
sedative of vanity, had now discovered that 
the sitting was over, and edging closer to 
the booth, was awkwardly endeavoring to 
catch sight of the result, the waxen sketch 
half concealed by the hand of Narcisse. In 


78 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


an ecstasy of self-study, lie had not found a 
glance to spare for Rosalie ; it was obvious 
that for him she and her large beauty did not 
so much as exist. Nor was she more 
conscious of the trumpeter. As Narcisse 
glanced in her direction, he caught, thrown 
full at himself, that fiery, tender gaze of hers 
which often troubled him, so little did he 
feel able to respond to the self-abandonment 
it hinted at. At least, he smiled to acknowl- 
edge, he had no cause to lie awake at night 
tortured by jealousy of his good friend, the 
trumpeter. And now, gaily rising to fetch 
some other tools from the back of the shop, 
he drove both his visitors away, threatening 
that they should feel the weight of his ham- 
mer if they loitered there wasting his time 
any longer. Rosalie fled down the Place, 
as if for her life, laughing aloud. The 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


79 


trumpeter made a lunge at the sketch of him- 
self ? caught it, lovingly contemplated it, and 
returned it, with the prints of his finger-tips 
deeply set in the edge of the red-wax. 

“ Devil that thou art/’ he said, “ thou hast 
given me the snout of a swine.” 

u Pray to St. Maze thou mayst never see 
thy ugly muzzle from the side,” answered 
Narcisse. 

Whereupon there followed hot horse-play, 
to and fro, across the booth table, and then 
the trumpeter strode off, his vermilion feather 
dancing a saraband in the breeze. Left 
alone, Narcisse settled to fresh work, adroitly 
twisting the iron wire before him into 
coils and tendrils, the sharp rap of his ham- 
mer ever and anon ringing out in the silence 
of the morning, as he flattened the surface of a 
form he had secured. But there was no other 


80 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


sound from the workshop. The townspeople 
were as well accustomed to hearing trills of 
only half-intelligible southern song proceed 
from behind the buttress of the church, as 
to hear from his ivory cage, the piping of the 
Abba’s famous greenfinch. Narcisse had a 
trained and effective tenor voice, not strong, 
but held well under control, and it was his 
habit to sing continuously as he sat at work. 
To-day, however, he was silent. It was not 
that he was unhappy. On the contrary, his 
face expressed a species of eagerness and even 
elation. But he was restless. So pre-occu- 
pied did he become, that he was convinced at 
length that to stay longer in the workshop 
was useless. 

From the inner wall he took down a gun 
that Mercillat had given him, and threw his 
brown cloak across his shoulders. As was 


THE SEC liE T OF NARCISSE. 


81 


his custom when his head became too hot to 

guide his hands, he locked up the booth and 

went down to the river-meadows to see what 

luck he might have in shooting. There was 

little to be seen at first, but presently, in an 

alder-swamp close to the stream, he bagged 

a brace of snipe. He missed another cock- 

bird, and it rose, squeaking and zigzagging, 

in the air, before taking its straight course 

out of all possible gunshot. He followed it, 

aimlessly, his mind all the time reverting 

mechanically to something which lay heavily 

upon it. By degrees, though he found no 

more snipe, his sharp walk along the oozing 

edges of the water-meadows cleared the 

current of his thoughts. It was not the 

habit of that age to observe in any very 

conscious way the features of landscape, but 

perhaps those at the feet of the traveller 
6 


82 


THE SECRET OF NARdlSSE. 


were more real to his attention than the stars 
and mountain-tops which engage our restless 
modern thought. Four hundred years 
earlier St. Bernard of Clairvaux had been 
able to ride all day along the shores of the 
Lake of Geneva, without noticing that there 
was a lake. This was no longer possible, 
perhaps, yet Narcisse would scarcely have 
been able to say why the glowing fields, 
laced with little gray streams and edged 
with water-flowers, affected him as they 
did. It was really a result of association, 
it was the sentiment of youth revived. 

He began to think of those southern fields 
where he had wandered years ago with boys 
of his own age. Giles, with the mole on his 
lip ; Aribert ; the boy with the large ears — 
what was his name ? It was he, the fellow 
with the ears, who had such a clever way of 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


83 


getting barbel out of the river-pools. 
Narcisse wondered if there were barbel in 
this river that flowed down under the citadel 
of Bar. And Aribert — whom he beat for 
stealing the big knife, Narcisse’s father’s 
hunting-knife. Did he ever make that up 
to Aribert? No doubt he did ; if not, 
what matter ? How long ago it all seemed, 
how vague, with intense clear spots, like a 
picture that has been smudged all over, and 
carefully filled in here and there. Giles — 
yes ! he was one of the spaces that was most 
highly finished. With Giles he had never 
quarrelled ; even when they fought together 
with fists, it was all in the way of comrade- 
ship. And what had become of Giles ? 
Gone to be a soldier in somebody’s wars, no 
doubt ; shot down, perhaps, some rainy 
evening, by an arquebuse from behind a 


84 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


stack of wheat, when he was so tired with 
the day’s long march that he had no power 
left to struggle for his life. Some story of 
that kind, commonplace and likely enough 
in those days, Narcisse seemed to remember. 

The days of his later youth, down there 
in the flat south country, where the broad 
river sank so shallow in the summer that one 
could ford it, of them he remembered less. 
Nothing seemed very clear, until the magical 
hour when the great and mysterious artist, 
Ligier Richier, had come riding through the 
village, and, stopping to ask the lad a 
question, had noticed the mechanical toy he 
was framing on his knees. Suddenly, 
imperiously almost, he had carried Narcisse 
off with him, seating him on the saddle-bow 
in front of one of his own servants, capturing 
this native talent for his own purposes, as 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


85 


the pirates of the Bey of Tunis steal good 
Christian ’prentices while they stroll on the 
sea-shore. Patiently and gently, bending 
his arrogant will to train this bewildered 
southerner, the Lorraine sculptor had 
developed to its highest pitch the skilful 
hands and clear imitative brain, producing 
at last a replica of one side of himself which 
just fell short of genius. Then had come, 
on Richier’s part, the sense of vexation at 
the limitations of the pupil. Doing so much, 
why would he never do more ? Excellent 
as a mechanic, as a carver, as a modeller, as 
a musician, why could he never, in any one 
of these directions, proceed beyond mere 
excellence into genius ? 

Narcisse thought of the adored master, 
and of the little cloud that had risen up and 
spread itself between them. Vaguely he 


86 


TIIE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


understood that Richier had believed in him 
and had been disappointed. Narcisse was 
still too much under the spell of his old idol- 
atry to question the master’s right of find- 
ing fault. But he mourned his absence, 
and not without a touch of resentment. 
Now, if he, Narcisse, should perform the 
miracle of orginality, the master would never 
know. Was it barely possible that if such a 
portent of a thing were made that men all 
over the world met to wonder at it, some 
whisper of it might not be conveyed over to 
St. Miliiel ? If a certain adventure went 
bravely through, would not Ligier Richier 
hear before he died that he had not been 
wrong when he snatched the village-boy 
away from being a gooseherd on the long 
white road ? And Narcisse smiled a little, 
in the covert of his beard, as he strode along 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


87 


from one streaming tussock to another. 

From the battlement of the mill, which 
was crenelated like a little fortress on the 
side that faced the meadow, a lean scare- 
crow of a miller called down to him. This 
lonely dwelling became, in times of sudden 
war, a haven of refuge for those who could 
not escape up into the town. 

“ What luck, Master Narcisse ? ” shouted 
the miller. 

Narcisse held up a brace of birds by way 
of answer. 

“ Ah ! ’tis too late for snipe. After an 
April frost, I’ve seen those running ditches 
full of them. But they hate the smell of my 
old woman’s cows, and off they go up stream 
to the empty pastures. Come in and rest a 
while, Master Narcisse.” 

“ No, thank ye, miller, I must be climbing 


88 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


back. That falconet in your wall looks out 
of repair.” 

The miller patted the little rusty cannon 
with an indulgent air, and said, “ Ay, she’s 
out of gear somewhere ; she’s fallen forward 
off the tressels. She wants a touch of your 
skill, Master Narcisse. Why, ’tis four years 
since ’twas used. ,She killed her man that 
day, though she nearly killed me into the 
bargain with her fizzling and her jump back 
into my legs.” The miller gazed lovingly 
sideways at his rusty protector. 

“ Any more sycamore-trees for sale, mil- 
ler ? ” asked Narcisse carelessly. 

“ Why, there bo two left on the point of 
the ait, and ’tis so hollowed away with the 
stream that one of them must go for certain. 
What a power of sycamore-wood you use, 
Master Narcisse ! ” 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


89 


u Sell me one straight bough off your tree 
and I shall want no more.” 

It was agreed that in exchange for setting* 
the infirm falconet on its legs again Narcisse 
should carry away as much of the best part 
of the sycamore as he wanted. He was im- 
patient to secure the wood, so he was pres- 
ently admitted into the mill and ascended 
the wall inside, to examine the little cannon, 
while the miller and his man sawed down 
the sycamore, and brought it across the 
stream. The falconet was not seriously out 
of order, and so, taking a note of what it 
wanted, and promising to come down with 
his tools soon — since, as the miller said, 
“ times of peace are the times for mending, 
ready for war, which the saints forfend ” — 
Narcisse shouldered his straight sycamore- 


90 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

pole, and, wrapped in the flying folds of his 
cloak, ascended the hill. 

In passing through the town, Mercillat 
was standing at his door and challenged 
him. 

“ Where have you been with that gun and 
pole ? You will have his Reverence at your 
heels if you go fowling in the Abbey waters. 
What sport?” 

Mercillat eyed the snipe and felt them. 
The birds were in excellent condition. 

“ Ah ! lucky that you are ! The hen, 
what plumpness ! Feel with your thumb 
here, the fat under the wing ! Ah ! the 
cock too ! Pity there’s but one brace, yet 
that is much.” 

He persisted so loudly in praising the 
birds, that Narcisse, who had not thought 
of it until then, felt obliged to offer them to 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


91 


his future father-in-law, and did so with the 
best grace in the world. Mercillat was 
offended. He thrust the snipe back upon 
Narcisse, and folded his own hands behind 
his back. 

“ Nay, nay ! What do you take me for ? 
You go down to these horrible water- 
meadows, you toil all day, and I, forsooth, 
must rob you of your little spoil. You will 
cook them for yourself, and relish them. 
Ah ! the pity of it that you do not know the 
true, the Barrois art of cookery. You will 
ruin those sweet birds. Take them away, 
my friend, cook them and destroy them. If 
I accept them, ’tis but that they may not be 
defiled in the ashes or soaked in too much 
oil. It is not to rob you, but to save the 
birds. They shall hang from our rafters, 
Rosalie shall cook them -divinely after the 


92 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


true Barrois manner, and you shall come in 
on Sunday and eat them with us. Nay, 
nay, freely given — I grudge not the labor 
of watching them being prepared. They 
shall be, on Sunday next, a morsel for a 
bishop’s nephew.” 

Narcisse went home, and up to his solitary 
room. Here he deposited his bough of syca- 
more-wood, and presently descended. The 
arched courtway next to the door of his 
house led to a vast herb-garden, belonging 
to the guild of physicians of the town, and 
the key of this garden, which was seldom 
used, was in the custody of Narcisse. On 
this warm afternoon of May he descended 
from his room, and let himself into the 
physic garden, which spread under the 
hinder windows of his house. He had 
sometimes thought of constructing a flight 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


93 


of steps which should drop from his own 
window into the solitude of the garden, but 
this still remained a dream of the future. 

Long, long he walked on this especial 
day, up and down the sombre aisles of the 
green, overgrown enclosure, his feet tread- 
ing one perfume after another from the lush 
and tufted herbs, shoots of which trailed out 
upon the path — rosemary and basil, ger- 
mander and calamine — all planted there by 
the physicians of the town, for health and 
not for beauty. His reverie grew upon 
him. At length he stopped short, sawed 
the air with the wide gesture of his arm, and 
sallied vehemently indoors, wholly forget- 
ting, in his absorption, to lock the gate of 
the enclosure behind him. 

The physic garden was a favorite place of 
meeting for Rosalie and Narcisse. Often, 


94 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


for an liour before sundown, the two lovers 
would wander there, leaving the gate un- 
locked. The local conventions saw nothing 
unbecoming in this, if the couple restrained 
themselves from sitting down or even stand- 
ing still. While the air was yet a little 
chilly, they might often be seen slowly, 
regularly threading the paths of the garden, 
she wrapped from head to foot within the 
folds of his great brown mantle, sauntering, 
sauntering ever, with their heads bowed 
towards each other and almost touching. 

On this particular afternoon, Rosalie, 
puzzled at the disappearance of Narcisse the 
night before, and again throughout the day, 
and still slightly piqued at his repeated 
neglect of her, could not prevail upon her 
feet to take her elsewhere than to the empty 
street in which he lived. She thought to 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


95 


stand there, and gain a glimpse of him, or 
even perhaps, by a discreet call, to win his 
attention. Without any distinct plan of 
campaign, and as if against her will, she 
started in that direction. When she arrived 
at the court way leading to the physic gar- 
den, she passed down it, thinking it possible 
Narcisse might be within. She leaned 
against the grille, looking through it hither 
and thither. As she did so, it yielded to her 
weight, and, with a rusty scream, gave way. 
To her surprise, she found herself inside the 
garden, and she was now sure that Narcisse 
must be there. 

Hemmed in by its high walls, the enclosure 
seemed cold and gloomy in the fading light. 
She looked for the tall figure of Narcisse on 
this side and on that, but in vain. At the 
further end there was a bower of ragged 


96 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


eglantine which might conceal him, hut he 
was not there. The garden possessed so 
little shelter that it was not by any means 
needful to examine it so closely for the body 
of a full-grown man, which could scarcely 
have been buried in it even by the piety of 
robins ; hut Rosalie hastened hither and 
thither, glancing under bushes where Nar- 
cisse might possibly he seated, or behind 
buttresses which might conceivably shelter 
him. At last she sat down on a soft mat of 
thyme, which exhaled its sweetness round 
her. She rested there, and tried to com- 
mand the tumult of her pulses. 

It would have been difficult for her to ex- 
plain why it moved her so much to find Nar- 
cisse absent from a place where she had not 
the least reason to suppose him present. 
But Rosalie was in uneasy spirits. The sus- 


TI1E SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


97 


picions which had seemed to prove vain the 
evening before, were they truly so ground- 
less ? She had expected from Narcisse some 
expression of penitence. It is true that in 
the chapel he had seemed absolutely inca- 
pable of perceiving that he was in fault, yet 
in that state of mind he could hardly con- 
tinue. Thinking over the events of the 
twenty-four hours, he must have admitted to 
himself that he had given Rosalie more than 
one just cause of offence. Yet all day long 
she had waited, and waited in vain, for any 
word from him. What did it all mean ? 
What had come between his thoughts and 
her ? When she considered her own inner 
beinor the ima<re of Narcisse seemed to fill 
it to the uttermost corners ; there was no 
room in her for any idea that did not, in 
some way or other, refer to him. But with 


98 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


him it was not so : as she now reminded her- 
self, it never had been so.' She began to 
hate all his other interests. What did he 
want with other interests, when he had her ? 
All things became an offence to her as she 
sat there on the odorous cushion of the 
thyme ; she reflected with anger upon the 
metal-work because it absorbed his fingers, 
on the trumpeter because he permitted his 
head to be sketched, on the very birds be- 
cause they took her lover away from her to 
those water-meadows whither she might not 

O 

follow him. 

Suddenly, from where she sat, she heard 
in the atmosphere a clear note of music. 
Some one was playing a well-known air on a 
flute. Rosalie knew it by heart. It was a 
favorite tune with Narcisse, and it was 
from his window that the bright notes were 


THE SECRET OE NARClSSE. 99 

now descending into the garden. A tide of 
happiness flowed through her veins ; she 
smiled as she listened. The air shrilling 
down in the deep silence seemed a direct 
and intimate message from her lover. She 
would let him go on for a while before she 
answered him. When the tune was finished 
she would rise, and stand just below the 
window, and noiselessly Aould throw a great 
bunch of sweet herbs into the room. How 
delightful to see his grave white face peer 
out in amazement, and then wrinkle into 
smiles ! She would wait now, keeping very 
still, until the flute had piped that southern 
air right through. 

But the tune came abruptly to an end, as 
though it had only been started as a test or 
to set some other music going. There were 
steps, and a murmur like some one speaking, 


100 


T&E SECRET OF tfARCISSF. 


and then the fluting began again. Not 
alone this time, hut, to Rosalie’s infinite sur- 
prise, accompanied on a zither. After a 
few notes the zither-player stopped ; not a 
very accomplished practitioner this, evi- 
dently. There was an exclamation, as the 
flute stopped also, more shuffling steps, and 
then the same performance over again. 

There could be no doubt about the matter. 
Narcisse, in his great chamber, was teaching 
some one to play in accompaniment to his 
own music on the flute, and the pupil was 
the object of his most assiduous patience. 
Who could this pupil be ? If it was some 
boy or man, why had Rosalie never heard of 
him? What could there be to conceal in 
such a matter ? How could it possibly be 
that he had neglected to tell her of the ar- 
rangement ? Of course it must be some youth . 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


101 


But who ? No doubt it was of no importance, 
yet why hide it from her ? He had not 
found so many things to talk about during 
their long walks together that he should fail 
to tell her that he was teaching some man to 
play the zither. He was perfectly at liberty 
to do so, of course ; she wondered a little 
that he should have the patience to do it. 
What could be the reason of it ? Who could 
it he, once more ? In the innermost centre 
of her soul the conviction was already settled 
that it was a girl whom Narcisse was instruct- 
ing. 

Beneath the window, and a little at one 
side, an aged vine-trunk rose out of the 
ground, its tough and gnarled mass project- 
ing a few inches from the wall. Six feet up, 
close below the window-sill, it took a twist to 
the left, and soon divided into boughs and 


102 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


tendrilled shoots that flung a canopy of pale 
green leaves over the grayness of the upper 
wall. Rosalie perceived that the turn of the 
vine, underneath the window, gave a coign 
of vantage from which a nimble climber 
could stretch upwards and peer into the 
room. At this moment the fluting and zith- 
ering began again. She sprang up the vine- 
trunk with the skill of a cat, and arriving at 
the shoulder of the tree, settled her foot upon 
it firmly, and clung there pendant. The har- 
mony proceeded better than before ; the 
pupil was evidently advancing in skill. A 
curious feature of the performance was that 
he (or she) made no false notes, hut either 
struck the instrument with absolute precision, 
or ceased to play altogether. As Rosalie 
hung in air, the zither stopped abruptly. 
There was a moment’s continuance of the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


103 


flute, and then it also was silent. An excla- 
mation of impatience followed in the voice of 
Narcisse, and then a quick and heavy step 
across the floor. The curiosity of Kosalie 
could endure this torture no longer, and she 
threw herself silently forward, clutching the 
vine in one hand and the window-sill in the 
other. She found herself further off than 
she had imagined, yet she could just peep in. 

What she saw, made the blood run scarlet 
behind her eyes. Narcisse was there, with 
his back turned to her. She could scarcely 
see him, because of the dimness of the light 
in the room, and because of the distance. 
But she could observe that he was close to 
his pupil, that his arm was round her, and 
that he bent his face down with a gesture 
which was not to be misunderstood. Who 
the zither-player was, and what she was like, 


104 


THE SEC BET OF NARCISSE. 


it was absolutely impossible to ascertain. 
She seemed very pale, and was apparently 
dressed in white, but that was all that Rosalie 
could discover. The figure of Narcisse com- 
pletely veiled his companion, and as he was 
about to turn towards the window, Rosalie 
swung herself violently back. She hung 
there in the vine, with her eyes closed, for a 
few moments ; then she descended, leaping 
without a sound into a deep bed of tansy. 
She walked across the herbs — so as to make 
no noise — as far as the gate, which, on a 
sudden impulse, she viciously slammed, so 
that all the echoes of the street were awak- 
ened by its clangor. Then she ran as fast as 
she could to the church of St. Maze, pushed 
her way in, sank beside a pillar, and, with 
her hands pressed to her face, knelt for a 
long time gazing through her fingers at the 


1TTE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


105 


pale lights twinkling on the altar. She pro- 
posed to herself to weep, but tears, like slum- 
ber, will not always come when the weary call 
for them. 


106 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE . 


IV. 

Later on that evening the Mercillats 
were gathered in their general dwelling- 
room, around the hearth. During the wars 
the family had grown impoverished, and 
now that the master-smith was wealthy 
again, he made no change in his ways, pre- 
paring for that great house in the new 
Italian manner which it was his dream to 
build and furnish. The fat coarse candle 
had burned itself down to its stick and had 
gone out in a splutter. As it was not worth 
while to fetch another candle, the fire was 
stirred and fed so as to give enough light 
for the women who still spun or knitted* 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


107 


The men lounged, lazy, stretched to the flat 
of the blaze, like dogs. Eudoxie sat up- 
right in an old-fashioned fixed chair, over 
which a sumptuous brocaded hanging, some- 
what faded with use, was thrown, the stuff 
running out so far that her feet rested on it. 
She occasionally stopped the soft clatter of 
her spinning-wheel, and gazed into the fire. 
Lucie kept up without a moment’s inter- 
mission the rattle of her knitting-pins, on 
which the firelight flashed and died away, 
much to the satisfaction of the wakeful baby 
in Bibi’s arms. Rosalie, plunged in a leth- 
argy, sat heaped together in the corner of 
the settle, silent. Indeed, very little was 
said in the warmth and repletion of the hour. 

But presently Eudoxie addressed her 
daughter : “ W ere you in the physic 

garden to-day, Rosalie?” 


108 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


“Yes — a moment.” 

“ I forgot to tell you to bring me a buncli 
of archangel for the liquor. Is it out 
yet?” 

“ I don’t know. I didn’t notice.” 

“ Look to-morrow, and if only the yellow 
is out, wait a while. It is the white flowers 
I want.” 

“ What is archangel good for, mother ? ” 
asked Bibiane. 

“ Stamped into vinegar, and made up as a 
poultice, it is sovereign for blains and swell- 
ings ; my grandmother made a conserve of 
white archangel that saved a lady’s life.” 

“ And, sister, bring a little rosemary for 
the pot,” said Lucie ; “your fresh rosemary 
is as tasty as allspice.” 

“ She will put it in our wine to make us 
drunk,” said one of the young men, alluding 


THE SECRET OF FARCISSE. 


109 


to the properties then popularly attributed 
to this herb. 

“ Why do you not fetch your own green- 
stuff/’ said Rosal*e crossly ; “ what else am 
I to get ? Chevril for the hotch-pot, and 
tamarisk for your toothache, and bindweed 
root to dye your hair ? Go and get your 
herbs yourselves ? Why should I wait on 
you all ?” 

At this outburst, every one looked up. 
This petulance was unlike Rosalie. 

“ But it is you alone of us, as you know, 
who can enter the physic garden. What so 
irksome in stopping to pick a few herbs in 
your lap when you are wandering there with 
Narcisse ? ” said her mother meekly. 

The subject might have been dropped, but 
that Bibi with tactless curiosity pushed on 
her inquiries. 


110 


THE SECRET OF EARC1SSE. 


“ Did Narcisse speak to yon of those 
birds ? ” 

There was no answer. With her fists 
pressing her cheeks, her eyes glowing 
through her hair into the fire, her bare 
elbows on her knees, Rosalie seemed in no 
mood for conversation. 

“ Was Narcisse ?” Bibi began again ; 

but was crushed by the violence with which 
her sister checked her. 

“ Never speak to me of Narcisse again,” 
she said, and vouchsafed no more. 

The family were not given to reticence, 
however, and Rosalie’s outburst was taken 
to mean that Narcisse might be freely 
discussed. He was no favorite, as we 
know, with any of the household, except 
with Mercillat himself. Not much was said, 
but the old charges were dwelt upon : that 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


Ill 


no one knew whence he came, that he was 
an alien in the town where all else were 
friends of old standing, that he held aloof 
from the townspeople. 

“ I should like to know what he does 
in that vast house all by himself,” said 
Eudoxie. 

u Why does he not come and live down 
here, like a Christian, with all the blessed 
smells and noises to make him comfortable?” 
remarked Mercillat. 

“ They say,” remarked one of the sons, 
“ that he walks for hours at night in the 
physic garden.” 

u By himself ? ” asked Bibi. 

“ W ell, could he walk with any one at 
that time ? ” was the reply ; and Lucie 
crossed herself, for a little chill seemed to 
strike across the floor. 


112 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

“ How do we know with whom he walks ? ” 
“ Perhaps he gathers poisons there.” 

The fire was getting low, and when a 
hollow log fell inwards, rousing a cloud of 
sparks, the women started. Rosalie, who 
had been sitting perfectly still, with fixed 
eyes, now said : “ Mother, have you still 
any of your angelica-root left ? ” 

“ Why, yes,” replied Eudoxie, with a 
house-wife’s eagerness, “ a little. Why ? ” 

“ What is it good for ? ” asked Rosalie. 

“ You know,” said her mother ; “ it is a 
strange remedy against poison, and against 
the plague. If you do but chew a piece be- 
tween your teeth, you may walk through a 
dead city ; it will most certainly drive away 
the air of pestilence, even though that cor- 
rupt air shall have gripped your heart.” 

“ Has it no other virtue, mother ? ” Her 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


113 


face was so impassioned as she said this, and 
the malignity of her expression balanced so 
ill with the indifference of her words, that 
they all gazed at her with apprehension. 

“ Yes,” said Eudoxie, trying to speak 
calmly, “if you carry angelica-root about 
with you, you may even consort with those 
who walk with the devil, and may take no 
hurt.” 

“ Then give me a piece of it, mother,” 
said Rosalie, rising to her feet and looking 
in that angry flicker of the logs like the 
very Witch of Endor ; u give me a piece of 
it, that I may carry with me when I go next 
to visit Narcisse ! ” 

There was no further word spoken. It 
seemed as though the doors had fallen 
open and an icy wind was sweeping through 
the house. One by one the Mercillats crept 


114 


THE SECRET OF NARC1SSE. 


off to becl ? while Rosalie, a motionless heap 
in the settle, waited there, glaring at the 
embers, till the last of the redness had died 
away into white ash. When she awoke 
next morning, a vague pain woke with her. 
She could not, for a few seconds, recollect 
what it was. Then her resentment swept 
back upon her, and she repeated to herself 
that she was not sorry that she had punished 
him. No one, she decided, would take any 
notice of what she had said, and, if they 
did, Narcisse deserved the worst that miodit 
be whispered about him. It would go no 
further, and, if it did, it would only serve 
him right. She thought again of the twilit 
room, of Narcisse with his arm round the 
zither-player, of the white hands she had just 
dimly seen in the darkness. She closed her 
eyes, pressed the lids tightly together, and 


THE SECRET OF JXARC1SSE. 


315 


told her heart that it had done well to be 
angry, and her tongue well to he spiteful. 

She was, none the less, aware that it was 
a very serious thing to allow a fellow-citizen 
to he accused of magic. She was known to 
be the most intimate companion of Narcisse in 
Bar, and she, in the full circle of her family, 
had broadly hinted that he walked with the 
devil. At that time there was no charge so 
terrible as this. It meant complete social 
degradation as well as judicial condemnation 
if it was proved, and the mere accusation 
was a stain. The bare suggestion of black- 
magic brought so strong a wind of terror in 
its train that all the human affections were 
blown away before it; fathers would de- 
nounce their children, sister accuse sister, 
friend desert friend. This was the terrible 
engine which Rosalie, in the concentration of 


116 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


her rage, had not been able to deny herself 
the little pleasure of wielding ; she had started 
it, in the vain belief that she could call it 
back Avitli as much ease as she let it go. 
But that could not be. Before the day was 
hot, the most terrible insinuations were be- 
ginning to stir in all quarters of the town, 
and little knots of people crossed them- 
selves as they mentioned the name of Nar- 
cisse. 

He, perfectly innocent of what Avas going 
on, and of the tempest in the mind of Rosa- 
lie, appeared at the usual hour in his booth. 
He had seen little of the girl for two days, 
and Avas beginning to realize that she would 
regard his interest in other matters as neg- 
lect of her. He presently strolled down the 
Place to the house, where Bibianne was sit- 
ting in the doorway. The child rose Avhen 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


117 


she saw him coming, with fear and disgust 
in her eyes, and was about to disappear, 
when he called to her, and begged her to 
send Rosalie out to him. 

“ Your sorcerer is asking for you,” said 
Bibi spitefully. 

Rosalie went slowly out, and met him. 
Narcisse could but notice her changed look. 

“ Are you ill ? ” he asked. And then, as 
she said nothing: “ Forgive me for not see- 
ing you yesterday,” he said ; “ my work was 
heavy, and my head was troubled with it. 
I must go back now to the workshop, but 
will you come this afternoon and walk in 
the physic garden ? ” 

Rosalie had said nothing, and her whole 
mind was bent on a scornful refusal. But 
with his ingenuous eyes fixed upon her, and 
the accents of his low, placid voice in her 


118 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


ears, she was no longer mistress of her re- 
sentment. She melted to him, and, more- 
over, unless she walked with him, she could 
never find out the secret of the zither-player. 
a Yes, I will come,” she answered.” 

And Bibianne, hidden behind the door- 
post, giggling, cried out : “ Take your piece 
of angelica in your pocket, then ! ” and ran 
noisily into the back part of the house. 

Rosalie, gazing at the utterly bewildered 
face of Narcisse, blushed burning red. u I 
will come,” she repeated in a softer tone of 
voice, and then she vanished. 

In the shop where Mercillat worked, with 
his son and two apprentices, no other sub- 
ject hut the scandal could occupy conversa- 
tion. Young Mercillat had already, in con- 
fidence, told Droz, the younger ’prentice, 
what his sister had revealed, and these two 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


119 


were now whispering together on the sub- 
ject. The gunsmith himself was much dis- 
turbed this morning. Nothing could be 
further from his convenience than any slan- 
der of this sort, and yet if the good fame of 
Narcisse was to he tarnished, it was not 
Mercillat who would make a martyr of him- 
self by defending him. He was angry that 
the question had been raised at all, and the 
whispering of the lads completed his ill- 
temper. “ What are you two chattering 
about ? ” he asked. 

“ About sorcerers,” the son replied. And 
then, after a pause. “ Droz saw a real witch 
once.” 

u Pooh ! ” said Mercillat. “ Go on with 
your work, or I’ll whip you both. What 
witch was that, Droz ? ” he added sullenly, 
his curiosity getting the better of him. 


120 


THE SECRET OF NARCI8SE. 


“ It was in our village/’ said the lad, de- 
lighted to have an audience ; u the AbM 
caught her by the sleeve when she was fly- 
ing over a cornfield. Her mother was just 
as had as she was ; she used to make some 
ointment in a pot and rub it over their two 
heads, all hut the face, and wait, with their 
window open, for the devil to come and 
fetch them. And they had their sabbath in 
a little wood, just behind our farm. She 
confirmed it all, and they burned them both, 
thank God ! I thought I should never get 
over the fright it gave us.” 

Mercillat wiped his fingers on his apron, 
and hurriedly crossed himself, moved in 
spite of his scepticism. No doubt such 
things did take place, though not so fre- 
quently as silly people imagined. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


121 


u Was slie hard-featured, this girl?” 
asked the other apprentice. 

“ No, just like any ordinary maid. You 
would not have noticed any difference. She 
used to come and fetch the milk from my 
sister’s every evening ; we never guessed that 
anything was wrong.” 

66 What crimes do sorcerers commit ? ” 
asked young Mercillat in a rather subdued 
voice. 

“ They swear by the name of Satan, for 
one thing,” said Droz ; “ and they blaspheme 
God.” 

“ They dedicate children to the devil,” 
continued the older man, “ and often they 
kill and eat them.” 

There was a long pause, and deep silence 
broken only by the ringing sound of the 
smiths’ tools. 


122 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


“ How can one tell a sorcerer by sight ? ” 
asked young Mercillat presently. 

u Oh ! there are marks/’ said Droz signifi- 
cantly, nodding his head. “ If a man has a 
little blue crescent, like a coriander-seed, in 
the soft of the flesh under his arm, or in the 
flank, that is a certain sign.” 

“ What is that little crescent? ” asked the 
lad again, drawn on by an intolerable curi- 
osity, yet stammering with confusion and 
discomfort. 

“ Oh ! that is the stamp of the devil’s 
nail in his body,” said Droz, almost in a 
whisper. 

“ Stop this talk ! ” shouted Mercillat, 
with an oath. “ Lazy vagabonds, go on 
wilh your work, or down comes the whip 
from the wall in one twinkling, and across 
your shoulders in another. Not a word 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


123 


more, or the largest piece left of any one 
of you shall be his right eyelid.” 

Who shall say how a report which deeply 
and universally excites the interest of a com- 
munity passes from ear to ear ? No one can 
be accused of climbing to the house-tops to 
shout it, and yet if the town bell were rung, 
and the story told to an assembled crowd by 
the crier at the top of his voice, it could 
hardly become more widely known than when 
floated from whispering lip to shuddering 
ear. It permeates the town, like oil. The 
mice seem to carry it in the shape of crumbs ; 
it is ground to dust, and blown against every 
window ; the rain sighs, and is full of it, and 
flushes every gutter and every sewer with it ; 
the sun comes out, and the steaming town is 
steeped in the vapor of scandal. In the 
midst of all this electrical excitement, Narcisse 


124 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


Gerbillard sat in his workshop, absolutely 
unconscious, sinking: at intervals in his clear 
bird-like voice, hammering liis iron coils and 
tendrils, in perfect ease of spirit and with 
goodwill in his heart to all the world. 

It is not to be supposed that the accusa- 
tion, so lightly thrown up into the air, had 
suddenly produced a crop of conviction. At 
first, people accepted it provisionally without 
further comment than an exclamation of 
horror, and passed it on in the same way. 
Rosalie Mercillat was quoted as the authority, 
and her intimacy with the accused man was 
matter of common notoriety. Bibianne had 
sustained a rather severe disappointment in 
telling the story to a group of girls. It was 
long since there had been a trial for witch- 
craft in Bar, and the accusation had not so 
horrid a significance to these children as 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


125 


to their elders. Some of Bibi’s audience 
laughed, the rest were apathetic. One girl 
ventured to ask what that meant, to “ walk 
w r ith the devil ? ” Bibianne could not very 
clearly say what it meant, hut the cure had 
preached about it at Easter, she knew that. It 
was the worst thing you could possibly do — 
oh ! much the worst. “ What ! worse than 
stealing the holy vessels from the altar ? ” 
asked one little maiden, this being a crime 
lately punished in Bar with extreme severity. 
Yes, Bibianne thought, on the whole, even 
worse than that. Much worse, at all events, 
than murdering your mother, because Martin 
Blaize who did that got off altogether, after 
confession, by grace of the Church. Bibianne 
was practically certain that there was no 
grace if you walked with the devil. 

“ Where did Master Narcisse walk with the 


126 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


devil, Bibi ? ” asked one tender creature of 
thirteen. 

“ In the physic garden,” whispered Bibi- 
anne, delighted to have awakened a real in- 
terest at last. “ Rosalie went up there, and 
found the gate unlocked, and walked in, and 
oh !: — she saw sights.” 

“ What did she see, Bibi ? Tell us what 
she saw?” said the pale cluster of flaxen 
heads, in chorus. 

u No, you will repeat it if I tell you.” 

“ Oh ! we will not, my Bibi, we will not.” 

“ Swear you will not, Zoe, and you, Bertha, 
and you, Pulcherie, and all of you ! Swear 
you will not tell ! ” 

“ Oh ! my Bibi ! ” sighed the whole com- 
pany, excited beyond power of further affir- 
mation by the secret which now seemed to 
hang imminently over them. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


127 


“ Well, then, come closer to me.” The 
children stirred a little, but closer they could 
not come. “ She peeped in, and then she 
saw Narcisse walking, walking, and wdiat do 
you think was with him?” No one ven- 
tured upon a suggestion, and so she went 
on : “ It was the devil.” 

“ Ah ! what was he like ? ” one girl con- 
strained her tongue to ask. But Bibianne’s 
imagination was limited. 

“ Well, just like the devil. He had a tail, 
and — and horns. Oh ! and he mowed off 
the tops of the flowers by swinging his tail 
to and fro as he walked.” 

This was said with great confidence, and 
was received as being, in its way, circumstan- 
tial. But nothing more could be extracted 
from Bibianne, who became duly conscious 
that she had gone rather beyond her text in 


128 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


this little narration. She hurried the girls 
away, with a fresh charge that, whatever 
happened, they should not repeat a word 
she had said, and that, if they did repeat it, 
they must not say she told them. 

Rain came rattling down upon the streets 
during the middle of the day, making the 
pear-shaped Place gleam to the very steps of 
St. Maze. Narcisse stayed longer than usual 
at his booth, for he had a piece of work that 
demanded all his attention. It was a chain 
of small steel rings, for the Duke’s chamber- 
lain, and the clasp of it was to be a mask 
held between two naked figures of children. 
He doubted whether to design a tragic mask 
or a comic one. The latter suited with his 
sprightly mood, but at length he decided that 
the necessary mechanism could be more con- 
veniently concealed under the symbol of 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 129 

tragedy. He rejoiced in the rain, for he 
supposed that he owed to it the circumstance 
that no one came near his booth all day to 
disturb him. He was not very fond of com- 
pany at any time, and when he was design- 
ing, the presence of idlers specially distressed 
him. But when the hour came for him to 
leave, the sky was blue again, with great 
rolling clouds, tinged with pink, tumbling 
over one another down in the southwest. 

His thoughts turned to Rosalie, and he 

felt that he must make her amends for his 

self-absorption. He smiled when he thought 

of that — a cunning, innocent smile. He 

walked home, smiling, and as he strode along 

he thought of many things, so happily, so 

dreamily, that it never once occurred to him 

that the people in the streets stared at him 

or avoided him. Yet it is a fact that two or 
9 


130 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

three persons did so and that two burgesses 
nodded their beards at one another with an 
air of extraordinary mystery as lie passed 
them. 

The testimony of the little girls— each o : 
whom had been allowed to speak at home in 
the presence of her betters, because of the 
importance of the news she carried — was be- 
ginning to tell on the population. A boy, 
too, had been discovered, who asserted that, 
very early one Thursday morning in Lent, 
he had seen Narcisse descend the tower of 
St. Maze, head foremost, crawling on all- 
fours, like a lizard. The little wretch had 
invented this incident, or had a‘dapted it 
from some story of a witch, and then, finding 
that it gained credence and made of himself 
a youth of importance, without any great 
difficulty succeeded in believing it. Ulti- 


tee secret OE NARCISSE. 131 

mately, indeed, after sleeping a night on the 
anecdote, the boy became so firmly convinced 
that he had really seen this reptile descent, 
that he shuddered in private when he thought 
of it, and would have endured a very smart 
chastisement before denying it. His evi- 
dence was held to be of great importance. 

Although as yet Rosalie had no conception 
of the rapidity and completeness with which 
her wanton piece of revenge had taken hold 
of the town’s conscience, she nevertheless 
became more and more uncomfortable as the 
day went on. It was not her nature to re- 
tain any impression long, and although she 
sedulously nursed the image of the zither- 
player seen through the open lattice, yet 
her conception of what she had seen grew 
steadily vaguer. This was inconvenient, 
because her only excuse for the monstrous 


182 THE SFOllET OF NAFCISSE, 

accusation she had made was the firm as- 
surance that Narcisse had done her this 
great wrong. Without a fresh vision of the 
interloper, she could not retain her resent* 
ment, and with the cooling of her rage, as 
she felt, would come a return of love for 
Narcisse, and of shame for herself. Already 
she be^an to reflect with extreme vexation 
on the step she had taken ; she must reas- 
sure her jealousy, or the tide of her feelings 
would ebb to the uncomfortable degree of 
positive compunction. To wind her anger 
up to the proper pitch again, it was impera- 
tive that she should see Narcisse, and in this 
frame of mind she made her way to the 
physic garden. 

Narcisse was just inside ; he unlocked the 
gate, and she Went in. But when he pre- 
pared to throw the brown wing of liis cloak 


THE SECRET OF NARC1SSE. 133 

over, her shoulders^ she evaded it. She 
would walk alone, she said y it was not chilly. 

“ You are angry with mo still, Rosalie ? ” 
he said. 

“lm I not right to be angry ? •” she 
replied. 

“ Ah ! yes, perhaps ! yes, yes ! ” he mur- 
mured ; “ I ought to think of you only, and 
my mind is full of other things.’ ’ 

“ What other things ?.” she asked eagerly. 

“ My secret 1 ” he said, spoiling ; “ this 
little girl wants to betray my secret ! ” 

“ How can I betray what I do apt 
know? ” asked Rosalie, flushing deep red, for 
her conscience upbraided her. How could 
he be so cool and light, she wondered? 
Why did he not show an embarrassment 
proper to his part ? She would force him 
to confess. 


134 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

“ What have you done with your zither ? ” 
she asked. 

“ Eh ! ” he said, surprised, “my zither ? ” 

“ Oh, do not feign not to know what 
zither I mean! The one that used to stand 
in the corner of your workshop — the one I 
put a new string into when the old one 
snapped with the heat! What have you 
done with it ? ” 

“ How do you know it is not still in the 
back part of the shop ? Come, child, let us 
not talk about these foolish things. Come 
here, closer to me ; give me your head here 
on my shoulder, and let us walk along as we 
are used to do — swing, swing, swing— so 
that we seem to make one person and not 
two in our walking*, I am tired, Rosalie ; 
come in here under my great cloak, and let 
us march, march. Do you not smell how 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


135 


sweet tlie basil is after the rain ? Stick this 
piece of it in my jacket, and lean your head 
just over it. Come, child.” 

His quiet force overcame her. Feeling 
like a traitress to his simplicity of faith, a 
coward to her, own unshaken purpose, she 
yet could not escape from the serenity of 
liis unconsciousness. She took refuge in 
silence, and silence was what he desired. No 
one who saw. these two persons oscillating 
along the garden, with their balanced swing, 
drawn together so lover-like under one ample 
cloak, would have dreamed what diversity of 
thoughts occupied them in the silence. He, 
once released from the necessity of answer- 
ing Rosalie’s questions, and permitted to be 
dumb without being upbraided for his cold- 
ness, passed back immediately in spirit to 
that secret thing which occupied all hi$ 


186 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


energies, while she, in the dark chambei of 
her narrower mind, was balancing each of the 
slight phrases he had uttered, and was try- 
ing to wring from them an admission of that 
infidelity of which now she almost wished 
to be persuaded. It was a mocking phantom 
of the marriage of true minds which these 
two beings carried up and down the odorous 
alleys of the garden, under the shelter of 
that hypocritic mantle. Yet even in Para- 
dise itself it was only the innocent beasts 
that supposed the thoughts of Adam to 
tally with the thoughts of Eve ; the angels 
who read the secrets of all hearts, gazed but 
once, and covered their eyes to hide the 
tears that gathered in their eyelids. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


137 


y. 

Narcisse tossed long upon his bed that night 
listening first to the hard rustle of the heavy 
rain, then to the delicate whisper of the wet 
trees in the windy moonlight. The moon 
had sunk very low, and it was near the mid- 
dle of the night, when the problem that was 
tormenting him 'resolved itself. He tried 
the formula over once again ; there could be 
no question that it settled the difficulty ; he 
turned his face away from the moonlight 
and sbpt at once. Next morning, he deter- 
mined not to go to the work-shop. He rose 
and went about his simple household duties 
as if in a dream ; he cooked himself some 


138 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


food and ate it slowly. The day was be- 
fore him, the long day that was to crown his 
life and make him famous, the day that was 
to reconcile him to his master. It was per- 
fectly needless to hurry. F or once, time 
was too long, and the residue of art was 
short. 

The larofe double room in which Narcisse 
lived stretched across the first story of the 
house, and was raked with light from the 
street on one side and from the physic gar- 
den on the other. It was scarcely furnished, 
but it bore some traces of bavin of been the 
scene of wealth and even of ostentation. 
The walls were naked stone, the tapestry 
having been pulled down from them every- 
where ; but there was a gaudily colored 
Gothic fireplace, in a corner of which, among 
the ashes, Narcisse prepared his meals. The 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


139 


sculptor’s effects were contained in a large 
coffer bound with belts of brass, which stood 
against one of the walls, close to his bed. 
The floor was strewn with chips and curls of 
white wood, carelessly swept hither and 
thither into heaps and drifts. A few benches 
of the roughest carpentry, and a rude deal 
table, contrasted with an elaborately gilded 
and painted chair, ornamented with angels 
in scarlet and blue, which LIgier Richier 
had left behind him, much the worse for 
wear. 

The only ornament to be seen was a large 
design pinned on one of the walls. It was 
a drawing in sanguine, with some details 
added by the pen in Indian ink. This also 
was a relic of Richier’s tenancy* and had 
been given by him to his pupil, because of 
the impassioned interest the latter had al- 


140 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE; 

ways shown in it. It was a spirited rather 
than an accomplished piece of work, curious 
chiefly because of its sympathy with the odd 
instincts of that particular generation. It 
represented two soldiers, in Florentine dress, 
lying dead, side by side, in what seemed to 
be heather or fern, since their bodies were 
sunken in it. They had, apparently, just 
been slain suddenly by a skeleton which 
had come behind them, and which was even 
now dancing with rage above them, and 
brandishing in its fingers a small dagger. 
The skeleton was female, for its hair was 
flowing in the wind, still uplifted by the 
speed with which its owner had descended 
the long brae-side which sank from a little 
turreted city far away up in the back- 
ground, against the sky. The cere-cloths, 
which had enfolded the bones were flap- 


THE SECRET OF EAHCISSE i 141 

ping elegantly and conventionally around the 
skeleton, like narrow banners or like strap- 
work in a decorated ceiling. Underneath 
the drawing were scrawled some Italian 
verses — *- 

Era miracol novo a veder quivi 
Eotte Varme ft Amor 

the rest illegible. What it all meant might 
have puzzled the most learned emblematist 
at Venice or Lyons. To Narcisse it had a 
meaning which he kept to himself, and in 
the melancholy refinement of which he 
found the satisfaction of his temperament. 

One other object there was in the room 
which might attract the eye of a stranger. 
This was a light but tall screen in one cor- 
ner, that divided off a space as a sort of pen, 
within which, indeed, it might not be unnat- 
urally supposed < that some animal was con- 


142 the secret of NARCISSE. 

fined. Narcisse, his morning duties over, 
sat down at the table with some atoms of 
steel and his tools in front of him, and com- 
pleted what appeared to be a spring. Every 
now and then he would go behind the 
screen, remove some cloths, and adjust the 
object which he took with him. A long 
note of music, or a succession of notes, 
would result from his movements. He 
would reappear and return with his mechan- 
ism to the table, bending over the delicate 
apparatus in the deep morning stillness. 
At last the result seemed to give him com- 
plete satisfaction. He returned with empty 
hands, and began to gather up and carefully 
to wipe the various tools upon the table. 

To an unseen spectator, ignorant of what 
was passing there, the conduct of the me- 
chanic himself might well have caused pro- 


14 $ 


TIIE SECRET OF KARCISSE. 

foundest amazement. He strode up and 
down the room, loosening his girdle and un- 
fastening the points of his jacket, as though 
the pressure of his garments suffocated him. 
His shirt was tied low in the throat, but he 
pulled the loop of it, and threw it open. 
His face was lighted up by an odd smile, 
flickering and fugitive, while a bright color, 
like the hectic crimson in a consumptive girl, 
burned out in his cheeks that were com- 
monly so pale. His gray eyes seemed 
larger and more blue. His reddish hair es- 
caped from the close cloth cap he wore, as 
he pushed it off his forehead with an impa- 
tient gesture. He looked as though he was 
addressing a crowd, for his lips moved, al- 
though there was no sound from them. All 
his customary placidity had left him, and 
was exchanged for a curious excitement. 


144 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


Up and down the room he went, in his cloth 
shoes, noiselessly, restlessly, too elate to sing 
or whistle, too happy to speak or to be still. 

Suddenly this electric storm of vitality 
died away. He seemed to grow very tired, 
very old. He pulled one of the stools to 
the window that overlooked the physic gar- 
den, threw open the lattice and stretched 
out his arms, resting the flattened elbows on 
the window-sill. He kept them there, out- 
spread, while the spent rain-drops pattered 
down from the vine-leaves into the palms of 
his hands. He stretched out his arms, as 
though exhausted with a long and critical 
exertion, which was now over, altogether 
done with and completed. He could relax 
all the muscles, let them lie open to the 
heavens in that awkward, helpless posture, 
for their work was done. And the per- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 145 

fumes from the fresh garden, all moistened 
with the night’s rain, came steaming up to 
him through the vapor of sunlight. He 
could distinguish them, he thought, as he 
could notes of music. There was the sweet, 
light scent of herb frankincense, so gay and 
wholesome to the senses. That coarser, 
heavier perfume, mingling with it, yet easily 
distinguishable, came — he knew well — from 
the great clump of hairy growth, with um- 
bels of rough yellowish blossoms, out of 
which wise women, like Rosalie’s mother, 
distil the precious gum opopanax. There 
was the high note of the rosemary, the pun- 
gent bass of the cat-mint. One after an- 
other, too numerous for Narcisse to name or 
to distinguish to himself, arose and inter- 
penetrated, making one great altar-mist of 
perfume, the various invisible clouds of 


146 THE SECRET . OF HARGIS SE. 

wholesome odor. He bathed his tired 
hands and eyes in this exhalation. It 
seemed a morning sacrifice in honor of his 
toil accomplished, his victory won. 

Suddenly in the deep silence of the gar- 
den, he heard a sound he knew. Some one 
was rattling the broad iron padlock on the 
gate of the enclosure. He listened again to 
be sure, and again he heard that furtive and 
discordant sound. This was the signal 
Rosalie made when she came, but why should 
she come in the .morning ? A third time it 
sounded, and then Narcisse sprang to his 
feet, fearing to be too late to detain her, 
snatched up the vast key, darted down the 
stairs and turned, in a moment, into the 
arched way. Yes, there was Rosalie, weep- 
ing, and shaking the lock of the gate in her 
distress. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


147 


When she saw him she tossed her tears 
aside, and leaned, facing him, against the 
iron grille. There was something tentative 
in her attitude, which gave her the look of 
an animal at hay, half fierce, half frightened. 
She had found it impossible to keep away 
from Narcisse. The night before, she had 
gone to bed intending to lie awake and think 
the whole matter over, hut her punctual eye- 
lids, in spite of herself, had refused to he 
held apart for five minutes. This morning 
her mood was hopelessly confused, the sore 
of jealousy still open, hut the visionary cause 
of it more vague than ever, while the memory 
of the placid, undulating walk of the pre- 
vious night, with the tall presence of her 
lover overshadowing and hushing her troubled 
heart with his own quietness, was uppermost 
in her sensation, as her latest experience 


148 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE.' 

always was. She had reached the point 
when the quarrel which she had made was 
grown to be an intolerable burden to herself , 
a burden which she would give a great deal 
to throw off. Her conscience, too, that pro- 
voking and tactless companion that it is im- 
possible to get rid of, was recalling to her, 
much more frequently than she appreciated, 
the cruel wrong: which she had done to 
Narcisse in her blind fury. To this tiresome 
monitor she replied that nothing was cleared 
up, that she had herself seen the interloper, 

and that Narcisse confessed that he had “ a 

fief tori hi ........ , . . 

secret.” To discover that secret, and to 

know the worst, had now become objects so 
acutely desirable that she lost, for the time 
being, all instinct of safety and decorum in 
the search for them. 

Neither Rosalie nor Narcisse spoke at first, 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 149 

but, gazed at each other. Then Rosalie 

L - 

adventured in a sulky tone of voice : “ I 
want to pick some allspice for my mother.” 

“ Child/’ he answered, “it is not your 
mother- — it is the holy Mother of God who 
has sent you to me. This is a blessed hour 
for us— for me and you.” 

She gazed at him astonished. 

“ Last night,” he went on, “ you asked me 
about my secret. How my heart leaped when 
you said that ! Tell me, Rosalie, my friend, 
tell me — how did you come to know I had a 
secret ?” 

She blushed with shame ; she could not tell 
him how. He misunderstood the color in 
her cheeks. 

■ ! ■ • l] : f , ■ • , ' . 

“ You do not know. But I know. It was 
our Mother, to whom I pray every night and 
noon. Our Mother, to whom I have vowed 


150 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


a gift for her chapel in St. Maze — a little 
ivory casket with the Passion of our Lord 
upon it. I shall begin it to-night, at the 
time of vespers. It is Our Lady who has 
told you of my secret.” 

It flashed across her mind that he must be 
impious to talk in this way, or else mad. 
Perhaps it was true ; perhaps he did walk 
with the devil. She said nothing, but clung - 
to the iron network. He did not seem aware 
of her silence, but went on speaking, as 
though she had answered him. 

“ Yes,” he said; “ this is the blessed hour 
which makes all things golden. Come up 
with me, up to my own room, and see what 
awaits you there. Come, it is dull and wet 
down here.” And he waved his arm in 
welcome, with that gracious gesture of his. 
His face was radiant, without excitement. 


THE SECRET OF. NARCISSE. 


151 


He looked like an angel in a missal, like the 
messenger of Annunciation, solemn and 
blissful. Rosalie was torn with doubts and 
hesitations. It was utterly in defiance of 
every code of manners for her to go up, 
even for a moment in iiiidday, to the dwell- 
ing-room of this man. On the other hand, 
he was so grave and, she believed, so honest, 
and her own curiosity was so extreme, that 
she risked it. She would make a pretence 
of refusal, however : 

“ That is impossible. How can you ask 
it?” 

It rose to his lips to say, “ We are be- 
trothed, we shall shortly be married — what 
matters it what people say ? ” but he re- 
frained, through a strange delicacy which he 
could scarcely have put into words. He 
saw the burning eyes of this girl fixed upon 


152 


TUE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


him, full of love, and lie was conscious that 
his own mood leaned much more to comrade- 
ship. He would not suggest anything that 
should place them, at this moment, on an 
amorous footing. The occasion was solemn, 
almost sacrificial ; lie wanted her sympathy, 
her tender friendship, but not the profanity 
of an earthly love. Life would stretch away 
in years long enough to he absorbed in that ; 
this was the spiritual moment that might 
never come again. 

By no arguments, therefore, but by a 
sweeping insistence, graceful and irresistible, 
which bore her before it, he overcame such 
scruples as remained with her, and they 
entered the house. The clammy desolation 
of the ground-floor, with its damp and naked 
walls, struck cold upon Rosalie, and awed 
her ; it was like going into church on a hot 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


153 


summer morning*. On the staircase she 
paused, and would even now have beaten a 
retreat. 

u Hush ! ” she said ; “ what was that 

noise ? Who is up here ? ” 

“ No one/’ he answered, but he smiled as 
he said it, and she flew to a conclusion. 

“ Very well/’ she thought in her heart, 
u i£ she is there, and dares to face me, I will 
try which of us is the stronger. Narcisse 
may look on, and take his choice.’’ 

She was absolutely determined to go 
through with the adventure now, and when 
Narcisse pushed his way into his own room, 
she followed him directly. She glanced 
round and saw in a moment that in that 
place, at all events, was no interloper. Her 
eye flashed about in search of signs of a 
female presence ; there were none, she was 


154 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


obliged to admit that. She refused to he 
seated on a stool, from a cautious instinct, 
but sat, as it were provisionally, on a corner 
of the table from which she swept Narcisse’s 
tools. And then she caught sight of the 
screen, and the little den it made ; and 
suspiciously rose to her feet again, gazing 
at it. 

u Rosalie, R jsalie ! ” said Narcisse, taking 
her two hands in his, and forcing her atten- 
tion to him. “ Listen to me, and be at rest 
for a moment. I am going to tell you— to 
show you my secret. You are to see it first, 
then all the town and all the world. You 
first, Rosalie ! ” 

He went to the screen and folded it back 
against the wall, revealing something, about 
five feet high, wrapped in cloths. One by 
one those swathings were removed, and 


THE SECRET OF NA RCISSE. 


155 


there was found beneath them a finished 
skeleton, in polished white sycamore-wood. 
The posture of it imitated, in some degree, 
the statue of stone in the church, but not 
in the case of the arms, which hung at its 
side. As a piece of mechanism it was very 
ingenious, for each of the principal bones 
was made separately and fixed to its neigh- 
bors with springs, but the labor had been 
lessened by the conventional treatment of 
the framework. The figure in its brilliant 
whiteness was unmistakably intended for a 
skeleton, and in the dusk might have startled 
an unwitting guest, but no otfe who examined 
it, even cursorily and ignorantly, would take 
it for a genuine relic of humanity. The 
skull was very cunningly carved, but in the 
rest of the figure art was sacrificed to 
mechanics. In the hollow of the chest was 


156 THE SECRET OF NAB QT$SE. 

arranged a sort of clock-work, which was not 
seen except on close, examination. The feet 
were firmly planted upon a wooden base. It 
was very cleverly made, but rude/ and 
childish, the masterpiece ol a provincial 
craftsman. 

Rosalie gazed at it in wonder and admira- 
tion, not, unmixed with apprehension. 

“ Was this your secret ? ” she said. 

“ Yes. I could not speak of it, even to 
you, until it was done. It has been a long, 
long business to finish it.” 

Her curiosity in the image began to flag. 
It was very clever, but— — ! This could 
not be the real secret of Narcisse. This did 
not explain to the girl who played the zither 
with him that evening. 

“ That is not your secret, Narcisse ! ” she 
cried, and she turned away as if to go. 


THE SECRET OF NAR CISSE. 157 

“ All l you gipsy,” he exclaimed, in an 
ecstasy of delight ; " she knows everything 
by divination, she reads the stars ! No one 
can deceive her, the cunning jade ! No, no, 
that is not my secret— not all my secret.” 

He stooped behind the skeleton, and drew 
forth the zither. She started as she saw it. 
Narcisse was more excited than ever. 

“ Ah ! ” he cried, “ did she not ask about 
the zither, too, when we were walking in the 
garden ? She knows everything, she reads 
the stars ! ” 

He set a spring in motion between the 
ribs of his skeleton, and a buzzing sound was 
heard; then he bent one of the pendant 
arms upwards and confined it below the neck, 
settling the zither firmly within its grasp. 
He then bent the other arm lower down, so 
that its fingers touched, or nearly touched, 


158 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


the strings of the zither. Then he retreated 
to a distance of eight or nine feet, and put a 
flute to his lips. As lie blew the first note, 
the finders of the skeleton struck the same 
note on the strings of the zither, and contin- 
ued to the end of the tune to accompany the 
flute with a surprising exactitude. It was a 
very fine duet on the two simple instru- 
ments. 

Rosalie listened, standing in the middle of 
the room, and staring. With a growing hor- 
ror in her eyes, she retreated backwards, till 
she touched the further wall, and in that 
position she met the gaze of Narcisse when 
the tune was over, and he looked over his 
shoulder to her radiantly, for congratulation. 

“ Then it is true,” she said, in an awe- 
struck whisper; “it is true that you have 
sold yourself to Satan ? ” 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


159 


“■ To Satan ? ” he cried, and his laughter 
rang out and echoed in the rafters overhead. 
“ No, indeed, to my own good head and 
brain, and to the memory of my master, 
Ligier Richier, and to the service of our 
Lady, the Mother of God. What are you 
afraid of, foolish child ? See ! It is not even 
made of bone : it is all white wood of the 
sycamore-tree, grown down by the river, in 
the miller’s ait. Every piece of it was fash- 
ioned in this room, by these hands of mine, 
with these tools of mine.” 

“ The skull is a dead woman’s skull,” she 
said dubiously, still half afraid. 

“ No, no ! ” he exclaimed, and laughed in 
pride and merriment ; “ it is all carved out 
of the good white wood, parqueted together, 
piece upon piece ; and what a labor it was, I 
warrant you ! Come and see, come and feel, 


160 


TIIE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


for yourself.” And he laughed again, that 
soft, contented laugh of his. But still she 
would not come. 

“ I tried to make her dance as well as play, 
like those skeletons that are painted on the 
rood-screen at St. Mihiel, that take their 
rebecks and fifes, and foot it, foot it, so mer- 
rily in a country galliard. But I could not 
contrive it. She was too stubborn. I could 
not teach her feet to learn the saraband, and so, 
to punish her, I fixed them down so tightly to 
this board that they will never stir, however 
madly she rattles on her zither. Ah ! she 
has been an obstinate wench ! ” 

Bosalie did not much approve of this form 
of address. Was she already, or again, a 
little jealous of a skeleton of sycamore, all 
joints and springs ? Partly this feeling, and 
partly a curious confidence born in her by 


THE SECRET OF NARC1SSE. 161 

the familiar way in which Narcissi spoke of 
and to his invention, overcame her scruples. 
She gave way to her intense instinct of curi- 
osity, and was persuaded not merely to look 
closely at, but even timidly to touch, the 
skeleton. 

This, then, was the secret of Narcisse! 

This it was which had occupied his thoughts 

so completely and taken him so often from 

her company. This was the white-handed 

maiden whom she had seen him embrace 

from her vantage point on the shoulder of 

the vine-tree. When she supposed that he 

was bending to kiss a rival sweetheart, he 

was arranging the swivel of a recalcitrant 

link, or twisting a wire in a fresh direction. 

She was ashamed of her jealousy, but she 

rejoiced to think that Narcisse, absorbed in 

his invention, had been wholly unconscious 
11 


162 THE SECRET . OF NA.R CIS SB. 

of it. There was no cloud on the laughing 
blue of his eyes when he gazed at her. She 
had never seen him so eager, so radiant ; it 
added a new charm to his serene and un- 
affected comeliness. She felt that she had 
never loved him so much. She forgot all her 
own mistrust, all her faithlessness, of temper, 
and rushed into liis arms. In another instant 
she had set the old empty staircase ringing 
with her sudden descent, had swept through 
the house like a south-westerly gale, and was 
flying down the street. 

Left alone once more, a great peace de- 
scended upon the spirit of Narcisse Gerbillard. 
After so long anxiety, after such an ecstasy 
of triumph, a happy weariness stole over 
him. He sat for. a long time on his bed, 
leaning his head against the wall, travelling 
over in his mind the difficulties which he had 


THE SECRET OF HARCISSE. 


163 


overcome, the disappointments which his art 
had conquered. He was profoundly happy, 
at peace with all the world. He did not at- 
tempt to look far forward. No doubt large 
fame and profit would accrue to the inventor 
of such a wonderful image. He would he 
pointed out as the maker of the Musical 
Skeleton. The Duke would send for him 
and make him perform in his presence. The 
dowager-Duchess, who had to excess the 
fashionable taste for skeletons, would wish 
to buy it. No ! he would never sell it. His 
maiden should never play with any one else 
than with himself. Except, perhaps, with 
his dear friend the trumpeter ; and he smiled 
to think of the figure with its docile white 
bones accompanying the brazen notes of the 
trumpet, while Narcisse stood by anxiously 
superintending and applauding. 


164 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

But all this was looking forward, and he 
had said that lie would not do that. He was 
content with the present, with the exquisite- 
ly still and complete and sufficient sense of 
accomplishment. From the garden there 
poured in upon him the soporific sweetness 
exhaled by the hot clusters of halm in the 
sunlight. He dozed in happy dreams on 
the border-land of consciousness, dreams in 
which his white lady seemed to dance before 
him with the black eyes of Rosalie in her 
sockets, and the trumpeter’s scarlet feather 
nodding over her temples. 

Presently he arorised himself and cooked 
some food. It had never tasted better, and 
lie had never been more hungry. Then he 
remembered his vow, and determined to set 
his hand to his work at once, to the design 
of that ivory casket which should stand in 


THE SEQllET OF NARCISSE. 165 

the chapel of the holy Virgin in St. Maze. 
It would be small because he was poor, and 
ivory was so rare and dear, but he knew a 
man in the castle who had a piece of walrus 
tooth. He would get it from him as cheaply 
as he could. Then — it should be a long 
box, with the Passion in relief along the 
front of it. Or else — the story of the Foun- 
tain of Youth, with naked figures in the foun- 
tain ? No, perhaps the Passion would be 
best, because the head of Our Lady herself 
could be introduced, with, soft, pouting lips, 
and little plump hands lifted to the cross in 
the French mode.. Yes ! that it should be. 
And he sat down, with a small board in front 
of him, to make a sketch of the relief in wax. 
When the wax study was finished it would 
be time enough to buy the walrus tusk. He 
would take the wax:en sketch to church, and 


166 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


dedicate it to Our Lady there. If she knew 
it was being done she would help him to buy 
the ivory cheaply. Ah ! what a happy world 
it was. 

And the consequence was that Narcisse, 
amply occupied at home, never left his house 
at all that day, and in his radiant peace and 
satisfaction never guessed that a storm of 
popular insanity was gathering in the town 
of Bar, or that his good name, his art, and 
his life were threatened by a monstrous prej- 
udice. The evening sank slowly and deli- 
cately over the green garden of herbs, the 
stars came out in clusters overhead, the moon 
showed a broad golden face in which there 
seemed nothing sinister, and Narcisse went 
to bed at last, sleeping suddenly and rest- 
fully like a tired and happy child. 


THE SECRET OF N 4 RCIS SE. 


167 


b~ !)<■: [ n;* > 



Early the following morning, Rosalie 
went down to the well under the castle wall, 
with her yoke on her shoulders and the two 
swinging buckets at her side. When she 
reached the water no one else was there, and 
she began her task. The first bucket had 
but splashed the surface of the well, when a 
little door in the wall above her opened, 
and the Duke’s trumpeter hurriedly de- 
scended a flight of stone steps to her side. 
He had evidently been watching for her 


168 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


from the battlements. He looked anxiously 
up and down the street, but there was no 
one to disturb them, and after a hurried 
greeting, he said : “ Does Narcisse wear a 
shirt of mail ? ” 

'“Noil- 1 do not think so,” said Rosalie ; 
(f why should he ? ” 

“ Why should he ? He will get off well 
if lie does not need one to-day. You must 
know what I mean ? ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Rosalie, in 
astonishment. 

“ It is all your doing,” answered the 
trumpeter sulkily. “ Why could you not 
leave it undone ? ” 

u Leave what undone ? I swear to you, 
trumpeter, I know no more what you mean 
by all this than the innocent bird therein 
the cage,” 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


169 


“ Did you not accuse Narcisse of witch- 
craft ? ” 

“ No ! ” said she indignantly, but waxing 
very red. “ No, indeed ! ” 

“ Well, then, the town has gone mad — 
stark, staring mad — of its own accord. Did 
you not say anything to set this story 
o'oinof ? ” 

o o 

“ It is not for you to put me through my 
questions,” she said, with an attempt at 
dignity. 

“ Did not you let them accuse Narcisse of 
witchcraft without denying it ? ” 

^ I was angry with him,” she said, in a 
low tone, after a pause. 

(( You were angry with him,” the trum- 
peter repeated, in a mocking voice, “and so 
you let the foulest thing that man can say 
of man pass uncontradicted? You were 


170 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


angry with him, and so you were willing to 
damn him body and soul? And are you 
still— angry ? ” 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” 

“ Then why are you so cool and quiet 
this morning ? ” 

u Why should I not be?” said Rosalie. 
a You know something. What is it ? What 
is it ? 

u If you are true in what you say, and it 
is Lot you who have set this thing going, 
borrow a shirt and sleeves of mail from your 
father and hasten with them to Narcisse. 
Tell him that all the rabble of the town is after 
him, and bid him fly out of Bar as quickly 
as possible and as secretly as he may, till 
this thing blow over. If he gets down to 
the miller’s house on the river, he will be 
safe, and he can stay there till we have 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


171 


cleared up this matter. But many friends 
in Bar, as you know, he has not. What 
you do, do instantly.” And the trumpeter 
leaped up the steps again and vanished 
within the castle. 

Rosalie filled the other bucket, and took 
the water home, working out her ideas as 
clearly as she could. Then she hastily pressed 
round to her father’s workshop. She thought 
to ask him to lend Narcisse the armor, but 
concluded not to risk the chance of his re- 
fusal. She stole in, and went to the back- 
shop, where she knew a suit was kept. For 
some time she could not find it, but at last, 
in a coffer, she came on the chain-mail 
jacket, with the sleeves folded above it. She 
took them all out, threw a cloth around 
them, brought them unchallenged through 
the front shop, and hastened to the court- 


172 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

yard of the physic garden, where she made 
her usual signal. As she passed near the 
church, she saw that the booth which N^r- 
cisse rented was empty, and she also noticed 
a little crowd of the worst ruffians of: the 
town clustered at the entrance of one of the 
narrow courts which led into the Place. 

Narcisse descended at the sound cf the 
rattling lock,, with the large key in his 
hand, but, to his surprise* Rosalie hastened 
into the house itself, ascended the staircase 
in front of him, and rushed into the room. 

“ Do you wear a shirt of mail ? ” she asked 
him. 

“ No, of course not,” he answered, smil- 
ing. 

“Then you must put this on at once,” 
she exclaimed, showing what she had 
brought. 


THE SECRET OF NA RCISSE. 178 

“I could not breathe in those things/* he 
replied. “ I have not worn mail since I 
came here with Master Richier, and he 
made us all carry chain shirts as we crossed 
the hill-country. He found out that I was 
carrying mine in my coffer instead of on my 
back, and flew into a rage with me. Why 
should I wear that stifling armor ? ” 

“ Narciss'e, you must ; you must put it on 
and fly. Go down to the miller’s house on 
the ait, and ask him to give you shelter * It 
is not safe for you to stay in Bar. Put on 
this armor, and go at once.” 

“ Why is it not safe ? I have not an 
enemy in Bar. Wliat has happened?” 

u There is a sort of rabble making trouble 
in the town. They will come here and in- 
sult you.” 

“ Why should they insult me ? The 


174 


THE SECRET OF NARClSSE. 


Duke will protect me. I will appeal to him 
if the worst comes to the ivorst. And your 
father with liis ’prentices would he enough 
to drive back an army of rabble.” 

“ They will not dare to do anything. 
Father will do nothing, the Duke will do 
nothing.” 

“ What is all this, Rosalie ? You speak 
as though I had become an outcast. Are 
there no laws in Bar ? Is not a God-fear- 
ing citizen safe in this Christian town ? ” 

‘ “ Not,” she said slowly and hesitatingly, 
“ if he has been accused of witchcraft.” 

u Of witchcraft ! ” he gasped, growing 
very pale ; u who has dared to accuse me of 
witchcraft ? ” 

She longed to tell him that it was she, 
that she had lighted this dreadful, inextin- 
guishable match in a paroxysm of jealous 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 175 

rage — to tell him all, and to gain his absolu- 
tion by her utter devotion, flying with him 
into the dark world outside, accepting the 
heaviest punishment, which would for her 
be sweetened, she felt dimly, by the ecstatic 
pleasure of his continual presence. But she 
lacked the courage to make this confession. 

He had no suspicion of the truth. “ It 
must be the Cure/’ he said, “ for he has 
never loved me nor my works. He hates 
the Italian taste, and they say ’tis he who 
scratched the carvings on the chapel gates 
that Master Richier* put up ; he hates those 
little sea-goddesses with their marble breasts, 
and would turn them out of the church if 
he were not afraid of the Duke. It must be 
he.” 

“Yes,” said Rosalie, in alow voice, “ it 
must be he.” 


176 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


But when lie pressed her for further par- 
ticulars, he found that she knew nothing 
specific. As she was ashamed to qonfess 
that she had started a rumor of his walk- 
ing with the devil, it really did appear that 
she knew nothing. She said that the trum- 
peter had sent a message ; hut Narcisse 
laughed and said that the trumpeter only 
wanted to get him away, and down at the 
mill, that they might go shooting together. 
She told him of the rough fellows clustered 
in the court, hut she had no proof that they 
threatened Narcisse. He did not want to 
go, and he made light of the affair. No 
one, he said, could accuse him of anything 
evil without being made to bring proof, and 
there could he no proof. 

“ You shall listen to the White Maiden/’ 
he replied ; “ before I think of stirring any 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 177 

where, she shall play to you ; ” and Rosalie 
allowed herself to be persuaded. The cloths 
were taken off the Musical Skeleton, and her 
mechanism was set going. The machinery 
acted perfectly, and the strangely fascinat- 
ing duet of flute and zither proceeded in the 
silence. As the figure and Narcisse played, 
however, Rosalie became conscious of gather- 
ing steps in the street below, and walking 
quietly to the window, without disturbing 
Narcisse, she glanced out. There she, saw 
below her a grotesque assemblage of people 
most of them roughs and idle persons, with 
a scattering of boys. The head of the pro- 
cession appeared to be the sacristan of St. 
Maze, who held a pair of brazen tongs in 
his hand, with which he gesticulated, sway- 
ing his instrument to and fro at the crowd, 

to invoke silence, like a conductor leading a 
12 


178 THE SEQIIET of nabqisse.; 

band. By his side an acolyte stood, carry- 
ing a pot of holy water, . and another young 
man was armed with a pan of burning coals. 
It was evident that this reconnoitring party 
had been quite unprepared to hear the 
music which proceeded from Narcjsse’s room, 
and that they were pausing in astonishment 
to listen to it. , ; ; .. . . 

At length the sacristan called out, in a 
shrill squeaky voice : 

“ I conjure thee, Lucifer, by the living 
God — — /’ and sprinkled holy water nerv- 
ously to right and left. 

Still Rosalie watched, unseen, and still 
the duet continued inside the room. 

) ■“ I conjure thee, Satan, ! I conjure thee,; 
Beelzebub ! Come out, come out ! ’ ’ shrieked 
the sacristan ; and taking, a coal in his tongs ? 
he waved it in front of the door. The smoke. 


TIIE SEC BET OF NARCISSE. 


179 


disconcerted a small bird whose nest was 
under the eaves, and she flew out with a 
rustle of her wings. 

“ There he comes/’ cried one of the boys 
“ like a little monkey with wings and a black 
face.” But the rest of the company felt 
that it was a common sparrow, and the boy 
was snubbed. So far as the matter had yet 
proceeded, it seemed absurd and almost 
comic. But the crowd was gathering, and, 
it did not seem to be at all a friendly crowd. 

“ Come out, Nambroth, I conjure thee ! ” 
screamed the sacristan, louder than before. 

“ Fly, Narcisse,” whispered Rosalie, “ fly 
now while it is not too late. Climb down 
into the physic garden, with the key, and 
hide in the bower until all this is overpast. 
Then slip down and take shelter with the 
miller.” 


180 the secret: of narcisse. 

“ And leave you here !■” he said. 

“ No, no, I will come with you.” 

. “ You could not leap down from this win- 
dow, or climb by the vine,” he objected. 

“ Oh, yes, yes ! I could,” she urged, blush- 
ing to recollect how well she kneAV the road- 
way up and down the vine. 

“ But, Rosalie,” he said, slowly, “ even if 
you come with me, I could not leave her be- 
hind, and we could not carry her” — he 
pointed to the Musical Skeleton. 

: “ Oh ! ” cried the girl,, stung anew by his 
devotion, “what of that thing? You made 
it, could you not make another ? Hide it in 
your coffee” 

“ She is much too large.” 

“ In your bed — under cloths upon the 
floor — in one of the empty rooms ! Let us 
drag it up the stairs ! Come, Narcisse, come ! 


THE SECRET Of HARGISSE: 181 

I will take its head, And you shall take its 
feet.” 

“ No,” he replied, “ I cannot. She' is 
part of my life. I should never' make an 
image like that again. Where she. is I must 
stay ; you do not understand. I have done 
nothing wrong. There is not a word of 
sorcery in all my head. I can prove my 
innocence. If I ran away, how could I ever 
come back again? After being accused, 
and not clearing myself, could I ever see 
Bar again, or you, or- — or — her ? ” He 
turned from his sweetheart to touch the wrist 
of the skeleton. 

Rosalie left him, and rushed to the win- 
dow overlooking the street. The crowd 
was growing more excited, and was shouting. 
The sacristan, like a madman, was rushing 
hither and thither, brandishing his tongs. 


182 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


When the girl appeared, leaning out upon 
the balustrade, the shouting ceased. 

“ Rosalie ! Rosalie Mercillat ! ” one or 
two voices called out. 

u Come forth from that accursed house,” 
shrieked the sacristan. u Satan is there. 
You will be carried off upon his shoulders, 
through the window. What is that sorcerer’s 
music ? If that is the hymn before the 
Black Mass, beware, wretched girl, that you 
be not scorched into a coal.” 

“ What is that music ? ” shouted two or 
three men in the crowd. Rosalie was so 
well known, and was so generally supposed 
to have denounced her companion, that the 
public, though amazed, were not exactly 
scandalized to find her in the house. 

“ That is Master Narcisse playing the 
flute,” she said, “ as you all have heard him 


THE SECRET OF, NARCISSE. 183 

do dozens of times in. liis, workshop below 
the church/’ she continued. 

“ And the other music, that which accom- 
panies him, Rosalie ?” ; 

That is the viol of Beelzebub, steeped 
in the blood of he-goats,, stringed with the 
hair of women who have cursed God/’ 
yelled the sacristaii, waving his nauseous 
smoking coal under the window. 

“ Fool, that is a zither ! Did you never 
hear a zither?” But, as a matter, of fact, 
that being a southern instrument, very few 
people in the town were familiar with the 
sound of it. 

“ Who is playing that— that— whatever 
it is you call it ? Tell us who is playing 
it, since Master Narcisse is blowing the 
flute. 

“ No zither,” squeaked the sacristan ; ff the 


184 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

sackbut of Satan, and lie plays it with 
strokes of his tail. Come out of this house, 
Lucifer, I conjure thee !” 

“ Who is the other player?” shouted two 
or three persons in the crowd. 

Rosalie leaned over the bar, and quietly 
stroked threads of hair back from her eyes. 
She smiled before she spoke, a contemptuous 
smile. “I am the other player,” she said. 
66 And now go home, you noisy, idle people, 
before the Duke hears of it and sends his 
halberdiers to fetch you.” 

“ It was you who was playing that zither, 
Rosalie ?” said Bibianne, just under the 
window. 

“ Yes, I,” replied her sister, rather shyly. 
She had not noticed Bibianne’s presence till 
that moment. 

u You cannot play two notes on any 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 185 

instrument in the world, you, Rosalie ! ” 

Narcisse appeared at the window, behind 
the girl, and she made way for him to stand 
beside her. He looked even paler than 
usual, hut quite calm and resolved. The 
crowd hissed and yelled at him. 

“ Go away, Rosalie,” some shouted, “ that 
we may pelt him.” 

Narcisse, too, urged her to go in ; for all 
answer she took his hand in hers and held it 
openly, gazing down at the crowd. 

Waving his arm for silence, Narcisse 
waited till the shrieks and cat-calls were over. 
The people listened. In a few words, he 
told them that there was no sorcery in the 
case ; that he had made an image with his 
own hands, since, as they all knew, it was his 
business to make images for the glory of 
God, and for the pleasure of the Duke and 


186 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


his other honorable patrons; that this 
figure was just now completed ; and that it 
was so made that it played music of itself. 
He went on to say that as the sacristan 
seemed to he the deader of the mob, he 
might come up and inspect the figure for 
himself, and tell the rest of them about it. 

Accordingly, Narcisse Avent down and 
unbolted the door ; after a little hesitation, 
urged on by the others, the sacristan 
ventured in, and the door was rebolted. 
The sacristan w r as a grim and unsavory 
creature, very thin and leathery, with eyes 
out of which all the color seemed to have 
been soaked. From the long habit of Avan- 
dering about in the gloom of the church, he 
had become unaccustomed to strong daylight, 
and peered and Avinked like an OA\d, in the 
sunshine. He came up sulkily and circum- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


1-87 


spectly after Narcisse, Avith a face committed to 
nothing. This man was famous for his super- 
stitious zeal and his hatred of the black magic. 
He was no lover of Narcisse, whose presence 
in the little workshop under St. Maze was a 
constant source of offence to him, since he 
wished for that Naboth’s vineyard for the 
use of his own daughter’s husband, who was 
a blacksmith. He was exceedingly cruel 
and credulous, and would have been con- 
stantly embroiling the town with his accusa- 
tions if the priests had not kept him in some 
sort of check. 

Narcisse could not but feel the absurdity 
of his own disappointment. He had planned 
to keep his skeleton closely within the hounds 
of distinguished society, to play it first in 
public before the Duchess and her son, and 
only gradually to admit to his circle of audi- 


188 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


tors the wealthy burgesses and the nobles in 
the Rue des Dues. And now, by a tiresome 
accident/ the cause of which he could not 
ditine/ his earliest public performance had to 
be made for the benefit of this horrible scare- 
crow:, who had no civil word for man or 
beast, and who was scarcely tolerated in the 
street. He did not speak to the sacristan on 
the stairs, and he silently motioned him to 
follow him into the room. Rosalie still 
stood near the window which overlooked the 
street. Narcisse had thrown a sheet over 
the main part of his skeleton, and he saw no- 
need to disrobe her for the sake of the new 
visitor, who kept close to the door, furtively 
crossing himself, in visible perturbation. 
Narcisse removed the cloth from the hands 
and zither, and was about to begin. 

“ Saint Ignatius and Saint Hippoly tus, pre- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


189 


serve me ! holy saints of my dedication, hold 
me in your hands ! ” murmured the sacristan ; 
and then, in a snappish tone of voice, to 
Narcisse* What is under that sheet ? 
Unveil ! disrobe! expose ! ” 

Narcisse bit his lip with annoyance at be- 
ing ordered, in his own house, by such a 
loathsome being, to carry out what seemed 
a profanation of his Maiden. Rosalie, at 
her window, stamped with rage. But the 
sacristan, after his kind, represented the 
town itself, the superstitious town wakened 
to suspicion and demanding a full disclosure. 
The sacristan had been invited in as an am- 
bassador, and must receive the honors and 
privileges of an envoy. Narcisse removed 
the sheet, and exposed the delicate white 
bones of sycamore-wood. He set the ap- 
paratus in order, and, turning his back to 


190 , THE secret of narcisse, 

the sacristan, began his duet with the skel- 
eton. Rosalie, however, kept her eye on the 
visitor, and watched -with astonishment and 
alarm the horror that grew upon his feat- 
ures. When he perceived that the figure 
was a skeleton, he started and crossed him- 
self hurriedly, but when he further saw the 
fluttering movement in the bosom, the un- 
familiar instrument held in the bony arms, 
the white fingers moving in cadence, his 
whole frame was convulsed with agitation, 
and he grew sickly pale, steadying himself 
with his hand against the post of the door. 

Rosalie, seeing this effect upon their un- 
welcome and unlovely guest, would have 
stopped Narcisse, but it was too late. At 
the earliest shrill note of the flute between 
the lips of Narcisse, the slender finger-ends 
of the skeleton touched the strings of the 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE, 


191 


zither in absolute unison, and the tune be- 
gan. Beads of anguish stood on the brows 
of the sacristan, he trembled so exceedingly 
that he could scarcely stand, and before a 
single bar was concluded, feeling his way 
with his hands like a blind man, he had tot- 
tered from the room, and was heard rolling 
rather than running, down the resounding 
staircase. He had scarcely power to open 
the door, but, after along fumbling, he flung 
himself at last into the street. 

The situation was now very serious. Nar- 
cisse’s first act was to dart downstairs, and 
push back the heavy iron bolt. Outside, 
the crowd was gathering close about the 
sacristan, who had recovered all his volu- 
bility, and who, with arms thrown up to 
heaven and appeals to all his patron saints, 
was giving an excited and a highly embroi- 


192 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


dered account of the scene he had just sur- 
vived. For a while, absorbed in the relation 
of this old man, the crowd ceased from all 
their noises. Neither Narcisse nor Rosalie, 
hidden in the embrasure of the window, 
could hear what he said, hut presently they 
perceived that he had finished his story and 
was urging his audience on to action. Sev- 
eral of the youths rushed to the door, but 
were foiled by finding it barred. W ooden 
shutters, nailed across the lower windows of 
the house, made those entrances also impos- 
sible, and a regular siege began. As stones 
and rubbish were flung at the upper window, 
Narcisse quickly closed the lattices and 
barred them. The raging crowd, now per- 
fectly crazed with superstition and alarm, was, 
at all events for a few moments, kept at 
bay. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


193 


When Narcisse turned from the street, 
Rosalie had disappeared. He flew to the 
other window, and saw her deftly descend- 
ing the great vine, which swang and started 
with her weight, but made a perfectly safe 
ladder. Arriving noiselessly on a bed of 
herbs, she paused and looked up. His pale 
face bent towards her, and she made a final 
dumb appeal to him to fly with her. She 
held the key of the physic garden in her 
hand, and she motioned to him to join her. 
But it was impossible to induce him to leave 
his image, and, besides, he could not have 
escaped unseen. He gesticulated to her to 
hide herself in the bower, not to attempt to 
leave the garden, and, to satisfy him, she 
pretended to do so, while he turned back 
into the room. But in reality she stole to 

the gate as noiselessly as possible, turned 
13 


194 


THE SECRET OENARCISSE. 


the key in the lock, and stood in the arch- 
way. The crowd’s attention was concen- 
trated in thundering upon the stout door of 
Narcisse’s house, and, withoiit being seen, 
Rosalie darted out of the court, and round a 
corner. Narcisse might have escaped, after 
all, she reflected. 

Meanwhile, beleaguered in his castle, Nar- 
cisse Was alon e with his W hit e Maiden . He 
lost none of his serenity at this fatal moment. 
In a corner of the room lay the armor 
which Rosalie had brought, and had thrown 
upon the floor. The clowd was yelling and 
hammering in the street below, the old 
empty house throbbing with the violence of 
the shocks. Narcisse stripped off his doub- 
let, and the close jerkin underneath it ; then 
lie carefully fitted the chain-mail over his 
shirt and put the doublet on again, flinging 


fSE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 195 

the jerkin on to his bed. The sleeves were 
cumbersome, and he could not pull the arms 
of his tight doublet over them, so he plucked 
them off, and discarded them. The mail- 
shirt alone was discommoding* enough to 
him. 

Outside, the howling and the clattering 
continued. The sacristan was now sup- 
ported by his son-in-law, the blacksmith, who 
had brought his hammer with him, and an- 
other man had armed himself with a bar of 
iron. Several of the youths had bludgeons, 
and the rest shouted to keep up the others’ 
courage. Blow upon blow fell on the old 
tough oak of the door. That was the 
smith’s work, Nareisse was sure, from the 
steady and workmanlike sound of it. At 
last there was a horrid crash, a scream of 
splitting wood, and the door had partly 


190 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

given way. It was now possible to push a 
hand in and pull the bolt backh and after a 
little delay, caused by the fact that the vio- 
lent blows had twisted the bolt, this was 
achieved, and the foremost members of the 
crowd, who were pressing upon the door, 
were precipitated forwards by its opening 
inward. 

But, having accomplished their purpose, 
the invaders were in no haste to make use of 
their victory. They gathered on the ground- 
floor, and Narcisse could hear them, sud- 
denly subdued in spirits, discuss what should 
next be attempted. The sacristan, jin a 
high moaning whisper, proposed this course 
and the other, but they all were conscious 
that in forcing their way with violence into 
a man’s house, they had acted with more 
zeal than wisdom. Nothing but the deten- 


197 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

tion of an indubitable wizard would justify 
such a tampering with the rights of prop- 
erty, and how were they, having gone so 
far, to go further and prove satanic posses- 
sion ? Into those who, scared to find them- 
selves in this quandary, were proposing to 
slink home again, the sacristan was pouring 
courage by describing the horrors of the 
scene upstairs, yet instead of this being an 
incentive, it was rather a deterrent. At last, 
five or six men — -with the hideous old sacris- 
tan, armed with a drawn knife, at their head 
— ventured, in a compact and silent phalanx, 
up the stairs. 

Narcisse heard them coming and threw 
his body against the door of the room, bring- 
ing the onset to a temporary pause. Out- 
side the door the half-dozen were breathing 
heavily ; inside it one desperate man, with 


198 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


the moisture beaded on his pale forehead, 
and his lips tightly pressed together, stood 
with his strong shoulder forming a buttress 
of vain defence. The invaders summoned 
their spirits to their help again, and rushed 
upon the door. Narcisse, flung down on 
the ground at full length, made the rafters 
ring with the shock of his weight, while the 
sacristan, at the head of the little army, burst 
in confusion into the middle of the room. 

A scene of the most senseless riot then 
ensued. Stricken with panic, and no longer 
recognizing one another in their horrible 
dread of the satanic forces supposed to be in 
action in this place, the invaders fell upon 
one another with shrieks and groans, giving 
Narcisse time to roll to the wall and recover 
himself. The sacristan, with a yell of fury, 
rushed at him, holding his knife ready to 


THE SECRET OF ■NARCISSE \ 199 

stab. He struck a violent blow directed at 
the heart ^ of Narcisse, whose doublet was 
ripped open with a hissing noise, but the 
weapon turned on the chain-mail, and left 
the old man in the power of Narcisse. Tak- 
ing him by the ribs in the grip of his two 
strong hands, the sculptor lifted his assailant 
and flung him to the opposite corner; of the 
room. The sacristan, descending on his 
flank and elbow, stretched his length on the 
floor, and bumped his bald head against the 
wall. The tramping and struggling had, by 
this time, raised a dust so thick that it half 
concealed the combatants from one another., 
The sacristan coughed as though his end 
were near, until his son-in-law, with the help 
of a lad. lifted him on to his feet again and 
shook him into life. 

Dazed still and sore with his fall; Nar? 


^00 THE SECRET OF NAECISSE. 

cisse looked round at the rest of the attack- 
ing party. He saw that they had discovered 
the Musical Skeleton, 

“ Here is the Devil’s dam 1” said one; 
“ here is the wickedness the beast hath cut 
out by Satan’s aid ! ” 

“ Say rather,” cried another, “ the shame- 
ful thing* Beelzebub has brought out of hell 
to seal his pact in blood. Take care ! Its arm 
moved ! It is, without doubt, Satan himself.” 

The poor Musical Skeleton, fair and 
glossy in its bones of ■ Sycamore-wood, liad 
dropped one of its arms to its side, the 
ruffian who tore off its covering having 
touched *a spring unwittingly. The men all 
darted back and observed it. It stood there, 
waiting patiently for its master, with its 
other hand still bent over the chords of the 
zither. The sacristan at this moment rushed 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


201 


forward, and commanded the lads to drag 
the unholy thing out, and into the street, hut 
none of them was willing to touch it again. 
In a blind fury, the old man made a rush at 
it, and plucked the hand of the skeleton. 
This gave to the mechanism the start which 
it required, and the white fingers began to 
descend rhythmically on the strings, produc- 
ing the familiar tune in stately cadence. 
Yelling with terror, the men flung them- 
selves to the further extremity of the room, 
several of them falling on their knees, and 
crossing themselves with fervor. Narcisse 
advanced to his beloved and outraged 
creation. Pressing the spring which reg- 
ulated the music, he stopped the tune, and 
threw the cloths again over the skeleton. 
He then turned and faced the cowardly 
group- of his assailants. 


202 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. . 


The concealment of the skeleton and the 
cessation of the music restored to the inva- 
ders their courage. If Narcisse had been 
willing to allow the docile figure to continue 
the tune, in open day, it would have been 
long before those trembling lads and their 
fanatical leader would have called up heart 
enough to come forward. But the sculptor 
preferred depriving himself of protection to 
witnessing and permitting the degradation 
of his White Maiden. He felt a burning; 
anger at the notion of his sacred and. divine 
figure being made a spectacle for the passions 
of a handful of brutes and clowns. He de- 
clined her protection. It was for him to 
guard her, not for her to bewitch these 
swine into abandoning him. He stood by 
the side >of his draped companion, and with 
a howl of rage the sacristan and his lads, 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 203 

leaped upon her and upon him. Narcisse 
struck out gallantly to right and left, but 
they overpowered him, and dragged him 
down into the street, the poor skeleton, 
huddled in its sheet, being drawn ignomin- 
iously in a clattering bundle from stair to 
stair behind him. 

Rosalie, in escaping, had fled towards the 
castle, and, happening to meet the trum- 
peter, had told him, in a few words, the 
position of events. Consequently, by the 
time that the unequal struggle was com- 
pleted, and Narcisse and the skeleton were 
captured, the trumpeter, with a handful of 
halberdiers, was at the door. The soldiers 
roughly hustled the sacristan and his man 
aside, and took Narcisse under their pro- 
tection. In vain, however, did the trum- 
peter urge that his friend should be restored 


204 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

to his house, and permitted to bring his suit 
against the impudent destroyers of his 
peace. The halberdiers had heard the story 
of the witchcraft, and realized only too 
clearly the awful nature of the accusation. 
Their captain raised Narcisse to his feet, 
and civilly enough corrected the disorder 
of his clothing, hut he would not allow him 
to re-enter his house. He left two of his 
men to guard the deserted room, secured the 
skeleton in a sack, and then marched the 
sculptor, in company with his figure, off to 
the town jail, in the name of the Sovereign 
Duke. 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE.- 205 

tf a# zn f guild o} I)oUuaT:>!r b rrr> />ned -hi 
thl ‘to hvr/mt:‘ib ,tir)h inju;' ■ : \j fcnwm 

VII 

On tlie third day afterwards a miserable 
morning broke in flying sheets of rain. The 
soft moisture gathered on the rusty bars of the 
cold; den in which Narcisse was imprisoned, 
and, gathering in little oozy pools, dropped 
inwards, plap, plap, plap. He wakened, 
stiff with dampness, and from his bed of 
reeds watched the smoke-like puffs of rain 
flying across the narrow gridiron of his win- 
dow. Poor Narcisse ! It was a new thing 
to him to suffer thus. The vague sense of 
anxiety and discomfort was presently trans- 
formed into a positive feeling of rage and 
despair — rage against the fools and bigots 
who had accused him of the most shameful 


206 The SECRET OE EAliCISSE. 

of offences, who had broken down the barrier 
of artistic satisfaction, who had outraged his 
hearth and his work ; despair of ever regain- 
ing the position so suddenly lost, of making 
himself intelligible to a people so savage and 
so densely prejudiced, of restoring to his 
soul that placidity which it needed for its 
labors. He knew not, except from the 
shrieks of the crowd, of what he was ac- 
cused. He had been dragged away and 
thrown into prison, without further commu- 
nication with the world. His window looked 
out upon a bye-street, and it would not be 
impossible for a person outside to communi- 
cate with him, deep as his cell was, since the 
pavement was on a much higher level than 
the floor. No one had come, however, ex- 
cept to throw a little coarse food into the 
cell. Not even a boy had given him the 


THE SECBET OE NABClSSE. 207 

distraction of a curious glance. He ^as 
forgotten. 

At this moment^ in the gray light, a sort 
of shadow seemed to cross his bars, and in 
another instant a face and shoulders, closely 
muffled up, appeared at the window, peering 
in, but saying nothing. Narcisse sat up, 
and was silent also, waiting to see if this 
was friend or foe. « ■■ ■ 

“ Master Gerbilhuxl ! ” said the hooded 
figure dubiously. 

u Ah, trumpeter, it is you ! ” cried the 
prisoner in a paroxysm of joy. 

But as he rose to greet him, the apparition 
at the window vanished. There was a silence 
once more, and the gray puffs of rain went 
wandering by. Suddenly the hooded face 
returned. 

“ Hush ! ” it said, “ I must not be seen 


208 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

talking here. I have been searching for 
you since daybreak : all that I could dis- 
cover was that your cell was on the street 
somewhere. It was by chance at last that I 
found you.” 

“ How much longer am I to he here? ” 
asked Narcisse. 

“ You will be tried to-day. The priests 
have been seeking to get you transferred to 
their custody. Perhaps it would be better 
for you in their hands. But it would be 
slower. All I know is, the parliament will 
not let you go, and will try you this fore- 
noon.” 

It was a relief. Better a sharp end, than 
many more days of this solitude and dark- 
ness, this wet and musty cell, with its foul 
corners and its horrible inhabitants. He 
looked up again to ask the trumpeter 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 209 

another question, but lie had gone. Nar- 
cisse settled down once more^ brooding, but 
now less utterly miserable, on bis reed-bed. 
A few minutes passed and the apparition 
was at the bars again, with bread and meat, 
and a small flask of wine ; this last was cracked 
as it passed through, and added a red tribu- 
tary to the cold stream from the window. 
The prisoner amused himself with what was 
left, and found several draughts of the wine 
in broken fragments of the bottle. 

“ Where is Rosalie ? ” be said, bis mouth 
full of meat, and bis veins already glowing 
with a sprightlier flood. But the trumpeter 
was gone. 

Three hours later, marching between hal- 
berdiers through the dense rain, Narcisse 
trudged up the shining wet Place to the 

court of the parliament. A few people 
14 


210 THE SECRET. OF NARCISSE. 

gathered to see him go by ; the Mercillats 
were at their door, all save Rosalie. The 
gunsmith turned away, shamefaced, as the 
soldiers passed, but Bibianne, with her bold 
eyes and cheeks, stood out in the rain on 
tip-toe to; see the prisoner go by. Narcisse 
could but turn a look of anger on her, and 
she rewarded him by putting, out her tongue. 
His latest impression of the town into which 
three years before, a stranger, he had come 
to claim hospitality, was this childish figure 
of Bibianne, with black hair untied, hands 
on hips, gibbering at him with the gesture 
which was at once an outrage and a curse. 

He let his head sink on his breast, and 
through the soaking rain, splashing up the 
mud as they went, they ascended the street 
to the doors of the parliament court. Once 
there, the degree in which he had suddenly 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


211 


sunken in popular esteem was patent to him 
at once. Men were passing in and out who 
had never crossed in front of his booth 
without a courteous greeting. To-day they 
took no notice of him, or, for very shame of 
their incivility, nodded and gave him a wide 
berth. Inside the doors there was a lawyer 
who owed Narcisse money for work done 
long* a«;o in liis new house in the Rue des 
Dues, and the sculptor, rejoicing to see there 
one on whom he had a claim, called out to 
him. The lawyer came slowly, awkwardly, 
conscious that all eyes were upon him, but 
when Narcisse explained that he desired him 
to undertake his defence, he roughly re- 
fused. 

66 The presumption of sorcery,” he said, 
66 is in itself enough to exclude you from the 
protection of the law. I cannot help 


212 THE SECRET OF JSTAMCISSE. 

you ; ” and he passed away into the court 
A sort of panic had taken the town. All 
business was to be put aside until this terrible 
case had been settled. Those who had ac- 
companied the sacristan into the house of 
Narcisse had circulated everywhere an ac- 
count of what they had seen, or thought 
they saw. Embroidered with abominable 
exaggerations, these narratives had sufficed 
to send the whole town mad with apprehen- 
sion. The devil, with his hoof and claw, had 
closed the door against the invaders, and it 
was not until the sacristan had sprinkled 
holy water on the lock that it had given way. 
Inside the room a most horrible skeleton had 
been found, dancing with Narcisse Gerbillard, 
and through the ribs of it the devil had been 
seen, in the guise of a black monkey, carry- 
ing a heathenish instrument, and playing 


THE SECRET OF HARCISSE. 213 

upon it with his paws; When Narei&se had 
caught’ up the sacristan, which he ;did with 
superhuman power, his fingers had singed 
the old man’s clothes wherever they touched 
them , and had filled the room with a smell 
of burning. When Narcisse , was finally 
overpowered; the devil, changed into, a large 
red bird, had been seen to fly out over the 
physic garden. Such were a: few of the 
fables, founded on very simple facts, which 
were repeated in the taverns, and afterwards 
sworn to in the courts. And there was the 
horrible instrument of satanic power, the 
wicked Musical Skeleton itself, safe in the 
guard-room of the court, to witness whether 
alb these credible housebreakers were telling 
the truth or no. 

All this and more had been sworn to by 
witnesses * in court. On Saturday and Sun- 


214 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

day, the throng had been so dense that the 
judge was with difficulty conducted through 
the people up to his seat. The hoy who 
thought he had seen Narcisse crawl down 
the steeple of St. Maze on all-fours like a 
lizard, was almost certain of that experience 
on Saturday, and on Sunday, at his own 
earnest request, was brought back into court 
to swear to it. The dwellers in the gaunt, 
gray houses whose narrow windows looked 
down upon the physic garden, gave evidence 
that often, in the dusk of the evening, they 
had seen Narcisse walking with the devil 
between the beds of thyme and basil. This 
testimony was weakened at first by the ex- 
planation of those who knew that Rosalie 
was wont to stroll there under the wing of 
the mantle of Narcisse. But many of these 
neighbors, even when that was said, continued 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


215 


to assert that though this might explain 
much, it did not account for all. 

Finally, Rosalie was examined, and this 
was the most captivating moment of the 
whole trial, in the sense of the general 
public. But, although she was wheedled 
and harangued, and though the judge him- 
self undertook to browbeat her, very little of 
any importance was obtained from Rosalie. 
She insisted that she had never heard Nar- 
eisse blaspheme, and that he had certainly 
never tried to teach her to adore Satan. As 
to his creeping down the steeple like a 
lizard, she declared that she knew that boy 
well, and that he was a little liar. Finally, 
the judge asked her whether she had heard 
the Musical Skeleton play, and whether she 
could explain that. At this Rosalie, after 
having bravely endured the long cross-ex- 


216 


THE SECRET OF MARCISSE. 


animation, broke down and was led out of 
court violently, sobbing. 

It was around the Musical Skeleton, in 
fact, that the really important evidence cen- 
tred. The other stories were of no positive 
value, except as supporting the general thesis 
of sorcery. Even at Bar, in the middle of 
the sixteenth century, no decent citizens 
would be condemned because a wretched boy 
said that he had seen him crawl down a 
church tower, or because a parcel of gossips 
thought that he walked in a garden with the 
; devil. But all this sensational testimony 
had its cumulative value when it supported a 
charge originally based on evidence so dam- 
ning as that of a skeleton which had, at noon- 
day> been seen and heard to play music 
though no one was touching it. The judge 
ordered the partial clearing of the court, it 


THE SEC BET OF NARCISSE. 217 

being very dangerous to expose these mat- 
ters in the presence o£ unknown persons, 
who might be sorcerers themselves, and 
might confuse the course of justice. In the 
midst of a slender circle of gowned lawyers 
and servants of the court, the skeleton was 
dragged in to be examined. 

It was well for Narcisse that he was spared 
the extreme mortification of seeing his pre- 
cious creature maltreated. The poor white 
skeleton was hauled out of a sack, into 
which it had been hastily thrust. The del- 
icate sycamore-wood was unprepared for such 
violence, and several joints of it were broken. 
The left arm was split across, and several of 
the tapering cylindrical fingers over which 
Narcisse had expended his most exquisite la- 
bor, were found to have been snapped off, 
and fell about the floor when the sack was 


218 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


turned inside out. One of the feet was. 
half wrenched away from the basis, and, in, 
dragging the poor figure over the stones, the 
nice parqueting of the skull had become dis- 
jointed, and a fracture yawned in it. Never- 
theless, infinitely dejected in -its air ; of pa- 
tient suffering, comic and tragic at once, it 
was propped up against a tall chair facing 
the judge. 

A heart of stone might have been moved 
to hysterical laughter and tears to see the mis- 
erable thing so pitiful, so ridiculous, so de- 
serted. In spite of all its injuries,, the me- 
chanical part of the invention remained on 
the whole intact, and after long and vain fum- 
bling at the machinery, the right spring was 
at length touched by accident. The zither, 
held tightly between the. breastbone of the 
figure and its right wrist, had not been dis- 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 219 

lodged, and the fingers descended upon such 
.of the strings as were not broken. A plaint- 
ive discord rose in the silence of the court- 
room, as pathetic and as blood-curdling as 
the broken singing of an idiot— a meaning- 
less noise, piercing even to the division of 
the bones and marrow. Without any notion 
of sorcery, it would have been poignant to lis- 
ten to that crazy music ; with the notion that 
it was Satan in person who was vivifying the 
strange white mystery, it was terrible enough 
to make one mad. The judge sank back in 
his chair, and covered his eyes with one hand 
while he motioned with the other that the 
horrible thing should be destroyed. Con- 
quering their extreme terror and revulsion, 
two or three of the servants thrust the ruined 
skeleton back into its sack. In doing so 
the fingers of its right hand caught in the 


220 the SECRET OF tfA&CISSF. 

folds of the sacking, and the strain broke 
the central spring of the machinery. There 
was one loud ringing note from the corner 
where the sack was ignOminiously thrown, 
and the heart of the Musical Skeleton was 
broken. 

The court had by this time made up its 
mind. It was expressly laid down in the 
code that a magician could be condemned on 
conjectures and presumptions alone. It was 
not needful to go further, and indeed the 
behavior of the skeleton had offered a great 
deal more than mere presumption. Still, for 
form’s sake and judicial decency, the pris- 
oner himself should be examined. If he 
could be brought to confess, so much the 
more salutary the example. An order was 
issued that the accused man should be con- 
fronted with the judge alone, the clerk being 


THE SECRET OF NAliCISSE. 221 
concealed behind a screen to take down the 
questions and replies. The judge, a harsh 
old, pedant, stuffed like an intellectual ortolan 
with useless and misleading knowledge, yet 
underneath it all as superstitious as the most 
ignorant peasant of the Barrois, drew the 
folds of his rich cloak of vair more closely 
about him, as the dreadful wizard was intro- 
duced. In a manuscript note-book at his 
side were jotted down headings of procedure 
in cases of sorcery, and the judge glanced at 
these as he directed his inquiry. His code 
told him to attend sharply to the demeanor 
of the accused, to observe whether he shed 
tears, whether he looked upon the ground, 
whether he shuddered, whether he blas- 
phemed. 

None of these indications were able to 
help him in the case of the prisoner, Nar- 


222 


THE SECRET OF JSTARCISSE. 


cisse Gerbillard. The poor sculptor was 
weary even to apathy * his hair, in which he 
took so much pride, was matted and un- 
kempt ; liis cheeks, always pale, were ahnost 
green with cold and privation ; and his 
serene eyes had lost their limpid self-posses- 
sion. When the judge stormed at him and 
scolded him, however, he neither wept nor 
hung his head. He endeavored to show a 
courteous attention, hut his ideas were grow- 
ing confused, and he hardly knew what the 
grotesque old lawyer was saying. He gazed 
at the window, at the broad delicious light, 
the soft blue sky that had now succeeded 
the rain, and as he looked the blue was re- 
flected once more in his bloodshot eyes. He 
felt like some winged creature that lias been 
stunned within a room; if he could only 
collect his thoughts, it seemed to him that 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE . 


223 


he could lift his arms and soar out of that dis- 
tressful place into the light. Alas ! that was, 
of all adventures, the one most frequently 
laid to the charge of sorcerers. Could it be 
that he was really in SataiiV service, after all, 
without knowing it ? He shuddered slightly, 
pulled himself together, and gave a closer 
attention to the gesticulations of the old 
man upon the dais. 

The shudder had not escaped the notice 
of the judge, and he redoubled his efforts. 
Shame alone, he assured Narcisse, prevented 
the sorcerer from making a full avowal. 
But no other person was now present to em- 
barrass him ; let him make a clear breast of 
the matter. When had he first received the 
visits of the devil ? Had lie originally re- 
pulsed them, and had he been over-persuaded? 
By what promises of reward, by what aid 


224 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 

given at a moment of despair, had he been 
drawn into the snare of the Evil One? In 
his prison Narcisse had been subjected to 
the outrageous insult of an enforced exami- 
nation of his body by the judge’s surgeon, 
who searched him narrowly for signs of 
diabolic possession, the scars of red-liot 
needles, the peculiar marks which were sup- 
posed to follow from the abhorred touch. 
As a matter of fact the surgeon had examined 
the young and healthy frame of Narcisse 
without finding anything, even a birth-stain, 
which could be interpreted as being a mark 
of the devil. In the criminal practice of the 
lawyers of that age, however, all means were 
justified by a godly end, and the judge, find- 
ing the prisoner getting obdurate, thought 
to force him into confession by telling him 
that the surgeon had found all that was 


THE SEQRET OF NARCISSE. 


225 " 


necessary for his condemnation — namely, 
the little blue moon-shaped scar of Satan’s 
claw-mark. Under this mode of terror- 
izing-, Narcisse began to grow nerveless and 
apathetic. His brain could not cope with 
these suggestions. He did not know what 
the judge meant. 

But when his tormentor passed from this 
order of ideas, which, as he perceived, were 
leading him towards no valuable results, and 
began to speak of the Musical Skeleton, a 
sudden change came over the prisoner’s de- 
meanor. Narcisse, who had hitherto been 
desultory in his replies and vacant in his 
expression, wandering about wearily and 
vaguely in uncertainty and bewilderment, 
woke up with a sudden start. He realized, as 
one sees clearly under a starlit sky, when all 
has seemed to the dazed eyesight a mere wil- 


226 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE, 

derness of obscurity, what the real meaning 
of this dreadful inquiry was. He un derstood 
at last that: his very existence was at stake, 
and he pulled liis spirits together to fight 
for his life. He became voluble, and almost 
eloquent,: in explaining the mechanism of 
the skeleton, to the impassive judge, who 
seemed to shrink slowly in bulk as he 
crouched before him in liis chair of ; states 
Narcisse exhausted his ingenuity of lan- 
guage, enforced his southern tongue to an 
extreme simplicity and : reserve, in describing 
with what innocent rivalry of his master, 
Ligier Richier, lie had determined to make 
this figure, how long lie had been occupied 
in carving it out of pieces of white wood, 
what had led him to select sycamore, instead 
of any other timber, and what difficulties he 
had met with hi liis adventure. He dwelt 


TEE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 227 

with adroitness on the mechanical side of 
the whole matter, carefully eschewing all 
figurative reference to the skeleton as a liv- 
ing being, cunningly insisting on the fact 
that he had chosen certain motives and re- 
jected others, for reasons wholly connected 
with his convenience as a workman. 

At last he stopped abruptly, or he saw 
that he was gaining nothing by his repeti- 
tions. A cold stream passed through his 
veins, as though they had been stricken by 
the frost of the unyielding eyes that gazed 
on him, eyes in 'which intelligence, sym- 
pathy, rectitude were alike subordinated to 
superstitious horror. The judge waited till 
Narcisse was silent, and then, summoning 
the warders, bid them take the prisoner 
back to his cell. When Narcisse had dis- 
appeared, the judge turned to the clerk who 


228 THE'' 

haA been Concealed at bis side, and bid hint 
write in thd j udicial record these wof dfe *: ‘ 1 7 
“Found guilty of black ' magic. The 
sa'iiie' diy, strangled add burned.- k» - 
No thought of hope, ho 1 glimmer 6f relief, 
lightened* the irihOcent and unhappy me- 
chanic back to his prison. What liis sentence 
was lie did notkiiowi, nor was he aware that 
the Duke, anxious, if it were possible with- 
out scandal, to feftve the life of a creditable 
craftsman, 1 had 1 sought in ! vain to prefect 
him. But r he gathered accurately enough 

what was the general tendency of the trial, 

. 

arid the eyes of the judge left him no illu- 
sion regarding his fate. 

Duririg these three dreadful days Rosalie 
had kept herself well informed of all that 
had been going on. Across her ill-trained 
mind strange successive tempests of passion 


THE SECRET OF NAR CISSE. 229 

had been raging. She could but recollect 
the extreme terror with which she had her- 
self listened to the. Musical Skeleton, and in 
spite of the explanation of its structure 
which Narcisse had given to her, the? convic- 
tion thAt there was •something supernatural 
and satanic about the figure would forcp it- 
self hi upon her thoughts. At these 
moments, in the fevered tension of her 
nerves,; she was ready to, wish that she had 
never seen Narcisse. And then, through 
these tumultuous imaginations, w°uld rise 
into her spiritual view tlm visipn of those 
lucid eyes, that broad and serene forehead, 
that beautiful mouth with thp fair lines 
>round it,, the mouth that could not have 
made any foul pact with Satan. So driven 
up and down, like a straw in an eddy, by 
revolving currents of fear and love and 


230 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE: 

shame, she became so weary in her soul that 
she could almost have killed herself, to be at 
rest. If she could have been sure of any- 
thing, sure that she had been right in her 
anger, sure that her anger had not directly 
and singly led to those terrific results, sure 
that Narcisse was a Sorcerer, sure that he 
was not — she could have suffered firmly, 
based on that conviction. But she was sure 
of nothing, and she tossed in an agony of 
indecision. 

She heard, however, of his conviction, for 
she was waiting near the door. She saw 
her bruised and shaken lover, degraded by 
three days of prison — dirty, dishevelled and 
ragged, yet still dignified in the serenity of 
his patience — led back to his cell by the 
halberdiers, and she was told that he had 
but three hours more to live. She was con- 


TME- SECRET, QE- N&RCISSE. 231 

scious of a cowardly wish that she did not 
know this fact. It was terrible, the idea of 
the necessity of a last meeting with him, 
and yet to fail in this supreme duty also was 
impossible. By her rough code of honor, 
it would have been an . act unpardonably 
shameful to have let liini die without a 
word of farewell. She longed and yet 
feared to see him. She wished that he could 
suddenly pass ouf of the world, and her duty 
be dispensed with ; she dreaded to discover 
that his cell had been changed, and at the 
same moment hoped that it had been, and 
that she would not succeed in finding him. 
The trumpeter had told her into what court 
the blind barred window of the prison op- 
ened. She waited till his warders must cer- 
tainly have turned the key upon him, and 
then she warily betook - herself to that <piar- 


232.. THE* SECRET OF, NARCTS8E.. 

ter of tlie town. As she turned up the street 
she dreaded to find a crowd of idlers peering 
down through the bars, : She held herself 
back for a moment, and a tumultuous ilongK 
in seized her to « be with Narcisse once more 
alone. She turned the corner, and her heart 
leaped. .to .her mouth, for the Street ; was 
empty. Yet she . could scarcely drag her 
feet to the window;. : ':•>’/ ; : m; i 

tiSlie : clung to the bars and looked in. 
Her eyes, accustomed to 'the light outside,, 
saw nothing but a vague gray gloom. “ .Nar- 
cisse ! ” she whispered. There was a rustle 
of straw, and out of the grayness there ap- 
peared the white oval of her lover’s face, : . 
peering up at her with .blinking .eyes. He 
said nothings and she said nothing ; an in- 
tolerable burden seemed to weigh upom the 
tongue of each ; which neither had the power 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. 


283 


to throw off. However, time was short, and 
something must be spoken. 

“ Can I do anything for you, r Narcisse ? ” 
she asked, 

“No,” lie said ( “no, you can do noth^ 
ing.” »* n '• -si: : r ■ 

; She eotild not bring herself to ask for his 
forgiveness, because that would have been to 
confess her fault. Yet she longed to pos- 
sess his pardon, and she would filch it from 
him against his will. 

“^Why are you angry with me?” she 
asked; 

“ Angry, child ? ” he repeated. “ How 
could I could be angry with you ? ” And 
they weTe silent again. 

“Is my booth broken up yet ? ” he asked 
at last. 

“The house by the physic garden is strip- 


234 


THE SECRET OF, tfARCISSE, 


ped of everything,” she answered, “ hut they 
have not yet thought .of opening the booth. 
It stands there locked < up. The saeristan 
was outside this morning, itapping the shut- 
ters with his knuckles.” 

> His daughter’s . husband; . [ can have it 
now,” said Narcisse. But here is the key 
of it. Would you like to give it to the sacris- 
tan, Rosalie ? ” . < 

“No,” she said vehemently, “ I would 
gladly crack his skull with it.” 

“ Take the key, child; ” and. he stretched 
up on tip-toe till she secured it. “ On the 
ledge under the table, where I sat; if you go 
in at night and feel with your hand,, you 
will find the wax sketch I made of the trum- 
peter’s head. If you are not afraid to do 
that, get it out and give it to him. He 
lilied it.” 


THE SECRET OF NARCISSI. 235 : 

Neither of them could approach the sub- 
ject uppermost in their minds. At length 
Narcisse said : “ Do you know all ? ” 

“ All what ? ” she asked evasively. 

“ All about me.” 

“ Yes, I suppose so>” she said ; “ is there 
anything you do not know? ” 

“ It is to be, is it not, Rosalie ? ” 

“ Yes, Narcisse, it is to be.” 

“ When ? ” he asked. 

66 To-day.” 

There was a long pause, duffiag which the 
white face seemed to grow very old and 
wasted, and the hollow eyes to be gazing 
past and through Rosalie into the blank sky. 

“ Do you believe it ? ” he said. 

“ Believe what ? ” 

“ That I am a — that this accursed thing is 


true ? ” 


236 THE SECRET \ OF NARCISSE. 

“ No ! ” she said, “I do not believe it. 
But is it not partly true ?\ True, withqut 
your knowing it ? , Oil, Narcisse ! ;; she ran. 
on in a terrified whisper, “ cannot a man bo 
possessed by Satan without his ; wishing to 
be? Cannot the devil have been in your 
fingers though lie was not in your heart ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I suppose !so, As ; I 
have lain here, night after night pondering 
it ally I have ; eome .to think that I may have 
been^-what they say I am. B ut, oh : ! Ros- 
alie, I never knew it, never would have* dent 
myself to it. If I am— that, it is best that 
I should die. Yet, after I think such 
thoughts, here in my loneliness, I remember 
the figure that I made out of the sycamore- 
wood. Rosalie, it was no wizard that carved 
the White Maiden. It was a workman who 
knew his craft, who was trained by the great 


Tim SEUBETyOF NAECISSE. 237 ; 

Ligier Riichier/ * Wlikt wias it dhat the old 
Earl dt>wii n Ai Italy ; said ^-Qhalis ■ artifeti 
pereo / The devil may do hi? Worst arid- liis 
best/ he cannot make a toaiV a better Orafts- 
man ' than his fellows. Rosalie, T have one 
request to yoh before I die. By bribe of by 
trick, buy or steal away the sack that - holds 
the Musical Skeleton t ” 

1 “Yes I f she said f alteringly, * I ; will/’ - 

“ And send a trusty man with it over the 
hills to Master Richier in his house at St.’ 
Mihiel, and tell him my story. He will 
know an d un derstan d , an d he will put up 
my maiden in a chambef *of his palace, and 
honor her, and speak well of his dead pupil 
at last. Will you, Rosalie?”' lie said 
eagerly. 

“ Yes ! ” she answered, almost inaudibly. 

“ Lean Very close to the bars that I may 


288 THE SECRET OF NARUIS&E: 

try to touch your mouth with my fingers / 1 
he said. 

She pressed her lips as far as she could 
through the perpendicular bars, but his 
fingers could not quite reach her. She was 
glad inwardly, for though she loved the 
man, she did not wish the sorcerer to touch 
her. 

^ Ah ! well,” he said, “no matter. You 
will save the Musical Skeleton, at least, as 
you have said ? Swear it, Rosalie, that I 
may have; comfort in my death!” 

The tears rained down her cheeks in a 
tempest. She could scarcely speak. 

“ Good-bye, Narcisse, good-bye.! ” 

“ Ah ! but swear first, dear child. Swear 
that you will save my White Maiden, and 
send her away to St. Miliiel.” 

“ Oh ! Narcisse,” she blurted out, “ I era- 


THE SECRET OF NAIWISSE. 239 

not. It has been broken up and burned*:’! 

The white face disappeared ; the prisoner 
had sunken on his straw without a word. 
Rosalie, in a passion of distress, shook the 
bars and called on him by name, over and 
ovfer again. There was no answer* but pres- 
ently the loud grating lof the lock told , her 
that the warder was opening the cell. She 
fled from the window, blind with terror and 
sorrow, and sought to gain her house. But 
a procession filled the Rue Chavie.» It was 
Monday evening once more, and up the steep 
and narrow street the dowager Duchess was 
performing her weekly pilgrimage, her tall 
figure shrouded in the long and flowing 
robes of black, on which were embroidered 
white death’s heads and hearts pierced 
through by arrows. The ducal chamberlain 
strode beside her, the* indifferent pages 


240 


THE SECRET OF NA&CISSE. 


followed, as she passed on her self-inflicted 
mission to weep and pray at the tomb of her 
husband. At length the portals of St. Maze 
were flung open, the procession was received 
within the church, and the street once more 
left desolate. 

Rosalie paused for a moment to see 
whether her father’s doorway was empty, 
and then disappeared within it. 


THE END. 


THE 

V . , ' • t 

SECRET OF NARCISSE 


($• (Romance 


.'i 


V,Y 

EDMUND GOSSE 

AUTHOR OF “ GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY,” “SEVENTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES,” 

“ ON VIOL AND FLUTE,” ETC. 


NEW YORK 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 

5 and 7 East Sixteenth Street 


Chicago: 266 & 268 Wabash Ave. 












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